The team prepares to replace LIGO Livingston’s beam splitter with a larger one. The photo includes a human, giving a sense of the vacuum system’s scale.
03.03.2026 23:19
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The team prepares to replace LIGO Livingston’s beam splitter with a larger one. The photo includes a human, giving a sense of the vacuum system’s scale.
Foggy morning @ LIGO Livingston.
As a science professor, I have difficulty convincing colleagues that those words usually shouldn't be treated as a capitalized proper noun, so I don't worry too much about the article. Both ways sound acceptable to me.
I Heart gravitational waves + you. Happy Valentine's Day! The heart outline is part of a plot showing the chirp of GW150914. Credit: Zane Zocher, LIGO Hanford.
Pictures of LIGO Hanford, KAGRA, LIGO Livingston and Virgo, with the caption "We'll be your Valentine.... just send us a signal". There is a plot of data from GW150914 before signal, because we really love a gravitational wave signal.
Two hearts inspiralling together, like a binary merger, over a space-themed background. The caption reads "You spin my heart right round, right round." Credit: Zane Zocher, LIGO Hanford.
Artistic representation of a black hole, with an astronaut in a heart. The caption reads "You must be approaching the event horizon... because time seems to stop when I look at you." Credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology
Happy Valentine's Day to all gravitational-wave fans, and especially @egovirgo.bsky.social and KAGRA 💞💗💓
View of auditorium with around 150 people present for 2016 announcement of gravitational wave discovery.
In addition to the main announcement in Washington DC of LIGO's discovery 10 years ago (yesterday), the two observatory sites held announcement events, including the one pictured here in Livingston, Louisiana.
Yesterday marked 10 years since LSU Boyd Professor Gabriela González served as spokesperson for the 1,000+ member LIGO Scientific Collaboration to announce the first direct detection of gravitational waves.
Watch: www.youtube.com/live/aEPIwEJ...
#GeauxScience
10 years ago today, we told the world
"We have detected gravitational waves. We did it!"
Relive the moment we shared our result with the world www.youtube.com/live/aEPIwEJ...
#GW10Years #OTD 🔭🧪⚛️ 🎂
10 years ago we were all waiting to learn what @ligo.org and @egovirgo.bsky.social would announce!
#GW10Years
Follow-up article by @clargrune.bsky.social in @theadvocatebr.bsky.social about passage of this year's funding of the NSF and its positive effects on LIGO. Special thanks to the taxpayers and the Louisiana congressional delegation for their support.
Grey Heron looking for snacks, walking along the rim of a pond.
Hello from a grey heron at LIGO Livingston Observatory!
More information about Science Saturdays: www.ligo.caltech.edu/LA/page/Scie...
Welcome coverage of LIGO Livingston's Science Saturdays, held the first Saturday of each month.
www.wbrz.com/news/ligo-ob...
Potential good news for research funded by U.S. science agencies NSF and NASA:
Congress set to reject Trump’s major budget cuts to NSF, NASA, and energy science | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
My family enjoyed their show in Lafayette, La. this week. Everyone in the house (except me) was a screaming extrovert, in a good way.
2015 was a good year for gravitational-wave astronomy
🔭🧪🛰️ #LPF10anniversary #GW10Years
A coda to Les Guthman's video series about Advanced LIGO, adding an homage to LIGO founder Rainer Weiss.
In Japan, KAGRA staff gathered in the control room to celebrate the end of O4. This was the first run that KAGRA took science data simultaneously with Virgo and LIGO.
Staff at LIGO Livingston Observatory in Louisiana gathered in the control room to say farewell to O4
In Italy, Virgo staff gathered in the control room to celebrate the end of O4.
Staff at LIGO Hanford Observatory in Washington State gathered in the control room at 8am to celebrate the end of O4. Everyone enjoyed morning coffee and cake.
Our Rapid Response Teams celebrate the end of our fourth observing run. Well done everyone!
www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo202...
O4 was a success thanks to lots of hard work from across the world.
🔭⚛️🧪
and here's how the O4 end of run looked at Virgo!
A group of smiling people—scientists, engineers, detector operators and other observatory specialists—post in LIGO Livingston's control room. Video displays on the wall and workstations show various real-time data relevant to the run. Also visible are three clocks: GPS seconds, UTC and local (CDT).
This morning marked the end of the fourth LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA observational run's third segment, O4c. Here's how it looked in LIGO Livingston's control room.
Infographic about GW241011 and GW241110 GW241011's source contained black holes about 13 and 8 times the mass of our Sun. The spin of the bigger black hole is high and bear aligned with the orbit. GW241110's source contained black holes about 17 and 8 times the mass of our Sun. The spin of the larger black hole is high and near anti-aligned with the orbit. Credit: Shanika Galaudage/Northwestern University/Adler Planetarium
We are pleased to announce our discovery of #GW241011 and #GW241110
Both come from binary black holes where one black hole is much larger than the other. The larger black holes have large spin. Could these black holes have formed in a previous merger?
ligo.org/science-summ...
#O4IsHere 🔭🧪⚛️☄️
A pair of distant black hole mergers, measured just one month apart in late 2024, are improving how scientists understand the nature and evolution of the most violent deep-space collisions in our universe.
www.caltech.edu/about/news/c...
a modest-sized alligator suns itself near a green body of water. This is nothing to worry about.
Thanks to jorgepullin.bsky.social, proof that LIGO Livingston's guardian alligator is on duty.
(rough guide, not rouge guide.)
Screencap of the Amazon app, showing a photo of pants instead of a book.
Let's see what the (US) Amazon iPhone app showed me recently when I was browsing for Szalzi books. Here is the product page for Rouge Guide to Money Online. There were other views available, mostly pants.
New Editorial in The Advocate | Times-Picayune about LIGO: www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/...
A nice piece by Liam Combs on WAFB TV about LIGO’s discovery anniversary. #GW10Years. www.wafb.com/2025/09/15/f...
Louis Dartez receiving his LIGO Calibration Wizard hat at the September 2025 LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA meeting from Jess McIver. The hat is a traditional pointy blue hat, but is covered with images of lasers.
During the recent LIGO @egovirgo.bsky.social KAGRA meeting, the 2024 winner of the LIGO Laboratory Award for Excellence in Detector Characterization and Calibration, Louis Dartez, received his honorary Calibration Wizard hat.
Congratulations to Dr. Dartez!
www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/award-e...
Amid concerns over potential cuts, Livingston's LIGO scientists mark 10th anniversary of monumental discovery BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD | Staff writer Sep 14, 2025 A signal lasting less than a second traveled about 1.3 billion light years before it reached an obser vatory deep in the piney woods of Livingston 10 years ago. The brief signal — caused by a pair of black holes colliding - the first gravitational waves ever detected, and it created a new way for scientists to look into the uni-verse. The Sept. 14, 2015, detection con-tirmed a key prediction of Albert Einstein's general theory of rela-tivity, earned the Nobel Prize in physics and kick-started a new era of astronomy. "Most of us had figured that with nature being perverse, that the first signal would be really hard to pull out of the noise. And then the signal came beautifully, beautifully clear," said Joseph Giaime, head of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in Livingston.
@clargrune.bsky.social of The Advocate covered the 10th anniversary of our GW detection. www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/...
po di um (po'dē-am) * n. pl. podiums or po dia (-de-a) 1. An elevated platform, as for an orchestra conductor or public speaker. 2. A stand for holding the notes of a public speaker; a lectern.
Not quite. See 2. in the screencap. If you are just a fun-loving pedant, peace.
Gabriela González speaking in front of a projection screen that shows a caricature of Einstein surfing on a gravitational wave.
LSU's interim President Matt Lee, speaking from a stage
Brian Wallace, senior advisor to the La. Governor, speaking from podium.
Group of people seated in an auditorium
Here are some more photos from the 10th anniversary event at LIGO Livingston: Gabriela González, LSU Pres. Matt Lee, Bryan Wallace—advisor to the La. Governor, and the assembled audience.