LIGO back online, ready for more discoveries
Today, scientists restarted the twin detectors of LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, after making several improvements to the system. Over the last year, they have made enhancements to LIGO’s lasers, electronics, and optics that have increased the observatory’s sensitivity by 10 to 25 percent. The detectors, scientists hope, will now be able to tune in to gravitational waves — and the extreme events from which they arise — that emanate from farther out in the universe. On Sept. 14, 2015, LIGO’s detectors made the very first direct detection of gravitational waves, just two days after scientists restarted the observatory as Advanced LIGO — an upgraded version of LIGO’s two large interferometers, one located at Hanford, Washington, and the other 3,000 kilometers away in Livingston, Lousiana. After analyzing the signal, scientists determined that it was indeed a gravitational wave, which arose from the merger of two massive black holes 1.3...