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What kind of wave does LIGO detect?
Comprising two enormous laser interferometers located 3000 kilometers apart, LIGO exploits the physical properties of light and of space itself to detect and understand the origins of gravitational waves (GW). LIGO (and other detectors like it) is unlike any other observatory on Earth.
How does the LIGO detector work?
Gravitational waves cause space itself to stretch in one direction and simultaneously compress in a perpendicular direction. In LIGO, this causes one arm of the interferometer to get longer while the other gets shorter, then vice versa, back and forth as long as the wave is passing.
Why is LIGO important?
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, better known as LIGO, was the first experiment ever to directly detect these ripples in space-time, so it’s the first direct physical evidence that they actually exist.
How many gravity waves has LIGO detected?
As of December 2019, LIGO has made 3 runs, and made 50 detections of gravitational waves. Maintenance and upgrades of the detectors are made between runs. The first run, O1, which ran from 12 September 2015 to 19 January 2016, made the first 3 detections, all black hole mergers.
What are gravitational waves Upsc?
About the Gravitational Waves: These are invisible ripples in space that form when: A star explodes in a supernova. Two big stars orbit each other. Two black holes merge.
When did LIGO first detect gravitational waves?
14 September 2015
The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made on 14 September 2015 and was announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016.
How does LIGO detect gravitational waves?
When a gravitational wave passes by Earth, it squeezes and stretches space. LIGO can detect this squeezing and stretching. Each LIGO observatory has two “arms” that are each more than 2 miles (4 kilometers) long.
Why is it so hard to detect gravitational waves?
Credit: LIGO/T. Pyle But these types of objects that create gravitational waves are far away. And sometimes, these events only cause small, weak gravitational waves. The waves are then very weak by the time they reach Earth. This makes gravitational waves hard to detect. How do we know that gravitational waves exist?
What is the relationship between EM radiation and gravitational waves?
Gravitational waves, however, are completely unrelated to EM radiation. They are as distinct from light as hearing is from vision. Imagine humans were a species that only had eyes and no ears. You can learn a lot about the world around you simply by studying the light from objects.
What are the ripples of space gravitational waves?
Scientists call these ripples of space gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are invisible. However, they are incredibly fast. They travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Gravitational waves squeeze and stretch anything in their path as they pass by.