ligo Archives - Northwest Public Broadcasting

How A ‘Singular Hero’ Helped Start A New Physics Field And Made A Big Wave Near Hanford

By NPR News May 19, 2019

Rich Isaacson, seen in his backyard in Pentagon City, Va., wrote his thesis on gravitational waves and says he always thought their existence would be proved sometime during his career. But he didn't realize that trying to see them would become his career. CREDIT: Ryan Kellman/NPR

Imagine spending 40 years and more than a billion dollars on a gamble. That's what one U.S. government science agency did. It's now paying off big time, with new discoveries about black holes and exotic neutron stars coming almost every week LIGO, with one observation facility near Hanford, Wash.Read More

‘We Have Seen What We Thought Was Unseeable.’ Scientists Unveil First Image Of A Black Hole

By NPR News April 10, 2019

The first-ever image of a black hole was released Wednesday by a consortium of researchers, showing the "black hole at the center of galaxy M87, outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon." CREDIT: Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al

The world is seeing the first-ever image of a black hole Wednesday, as an international team of researchers from the Event Horizon Telescope project released their look at the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 (M87). The image shows a dark disc "outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its Read More

How A Cosmic Collision Detected At Hanford Sparked A Native Language Translator’s Labor Of Love

By NPR News March 31, 2019

Physicist Corey Gray and his mother, Sharon Yellowfly, are pictured at one of the two massive detectors that make up the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. One facility, where Gray works, is in Hanford, Wash., and the other is in Louisiana. Courtesy of Russell Barber

On April 1, scientists will officially restart their search for gravitational waves after a year spent making improvements to massive twin detectors. Discoveries should soon start rolling in, and when they do, there's a good chance the news will be translated into a Native American language called Blackfoot, or Siksika.Read More

At Hanford, Watching Neutron Stars Collide: Just Another Day (And 130 Million Light Years) At Work

By Esmy Jimenez October 17, 2017

On Aug. 17, 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detected, for the first time, gravitational waves from the collision of two neutron stars. Photo credit: Caltech […]Read More

LIGO Detects Another Deep Space Black Hole Event

By Anna King September 28, 2017

LIGO Hanford is one of two detector sites that operate as a single observatory. CALTECH Listen Scientists in southeast Washington state announced Wednesday that they had detected two black holes revolving […]Read More