Big Science - Advanced LIGO: Listening for Gravity
Trying to detect waves in space
In the latest in our series on Big Science projects, Quirks & Quarks producer Jim Lebans looks into the Advanced LIGO project. Advanced LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory, is a huge gravity wave detector that is attempting to investigate and understand how space itself is vibrated and distorted when objects, such as neutron stars and black holes, are jostled in violent collisions and explosions.
Canadian scientist Dr. Mike Landry, of the California Institute of Technology, is the Lead Scientist on the LIGO Hanford Observatory, one of two LIGO facilities in the United States, and he serves as our tour-guide to the immense and delicate experiment.
Related Links
- Advanced LIGO
- LIGO Hanford Observatory
- Science news story