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LIGO Scientific Collaboration
@ligo.org
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Official account of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. We detect gravitational waves!

Email: [email protected]
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LIGO Scientific Collaboration @ligo.org · May 13
Autotuning gravitational-wave detectors using the chirps of the cosmos!

⚫⚫🎶🎛️

Meet #GW240925 and #GW250207, two new, LOUD #GravitationalWave detections that have enabled us to use astrophysical calibration to tune our laser interferometers

🖼️ : @astronerdika.bsky.social, @sbisco.bsky.social

🔭🧪⚛️☄️
The Autotune problem in gravitational waves: understanding astrophysical calibration with music 1. We hear an autotuned recording (detector data) and we want the original voice recording (gravitational wave). BUT 2. We don’t know the autotune settings (calibration uncertainty). 3. So we use a bunch of trial voice recordings (waveform templates) and apply various autotune settings to them to obtain a set of autotuned recordings. The best match reveals BOTH the autotune settings AND the original voice recording! GW240925 and GW250207 Events GW240925 with component masses of about 9 and 7 solar masses located roughly 1.1 billion light-years away. GW250207 masses of about 35 and 30 solar masses located about 600 million light-years away. LIGO Livingston and Virgo were online and observing fine, but LIGO Hanford had calibration issues. KAGRA was not observing at the time. The Distorted Recording Infographic describing gravitational-wave detector calibration. Three panels show: A compact binary system of two orbiting black holes producing gravitational waves. A stylized interferometer being stretched and squeezed by passing waves, illustrating calibration and detector response. A green waveform representing the recorded gravitational-wave signal. Detectors measure tiny changes in distance, and calibration disentangles the true gravitational-wave signal from distortions introduced by the detector response. More Detectors = Better Localisation Infographic explaining how adding more gravitational-wave detectors improves sky localisation. On the left, two detectors (Livingston + Virgo) localise a source to a large ring-shaped region on the sky. On the right, adding Hanford creates overlapping rings from different detector pairs (H+L, H+V, L+V), shrinking the possible source location to a much smaller region. Astrophysical calibration was needed to use Hanford data
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
pooyan.xyz
A month ago, I started a new pet project of mine with the goal of cataloging all the different species of animals and plants that live at and around the @ligo.org Livingston observatory.
Already made ~140 observations in a month, have another month or so to go.

www.inaturalist.org/projects/lig...
LIGO Livingston Species
Collection of flora and fauna at and around the LIGO Livingston Observatory site
www.inaturalist.org
November 1, 2026 at 10:46 PM
ligo.org
🎃 Happy Halloween from our ravens

📽️: alog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/aLOG/index.p... (can you hear them tapping?)
Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's Raven, a poem by Andy Lundgren: Once upon a desert scorching, ignorant of scientists working, Over a quaint and curious site of shining machinery did I soar There I landed, gently tapping, disturbing not the machine's clacking, On the chill pipe softly rapping, lapping the ice's cold succor. A cool treat, I fluttered, and then away I soar Only this and nothing more. Ah, be thou not so craven to name me a common raven; And dismiss these pecks I've graven upon your precious noise floor Eagerly I read your logbook, hoping that this humble rook Might one day not be overlook'd -- overlook'd in LIGO's lore- This this somber, clever avian might find a place in LIGO's lore- Part of science for evermore.
October 31, 2026 at 4:59 PM
ligo.org
Please do not try this at home

xkcd.com/3317/ by @xkcd.com
xkcd coming with caption: "My Hobby: Arranging binary black holes and rotating neutron stars to produce a gravitational square wave, as a prank on gravitational wave astronomers" The comic shows a diagram of a gravitational wave from a sequence of binaries. At first it is a simple since wave, but as the signals add together, it becomes a square wave. When the wave reaches Earth, the reaction is "???!", which seems accurate.
October 29, 2026 at 9:01 AM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
jorgepullin.bsky.social
The weighted stack we built is mounted on the test stand and we are doing fine adjustments of its position using the FARO laser tracker. @ LIGO - Livingston
October 27, 2026 at 3:50 PM
ligo.org
🔭 Latest updates on our observing plans: Our next observing period (IR1) will start early 2027. LIGO and @egovirgo.bsky.social will participate, potentially starting with two of the three detectors. KAGRA will join later in the run as available

More updates: observing.docs.ligo.org/plan/
Timeline showing O4, IR1 and O5. IR1 is due to start in early 2027. LIGO Hanford and Livingston should have a binary neutron star inspiral range of 160–180 Mpc. Virgo should join with a binary neutron star inspiral range of 50–60 Mpc; there will be interruptions in Virgo observing maintenance and upgrades. KAGRA may join later as available with a binary neutron star range of 7–15 Mpc. IR1 is due to end mid 2027. O5 is currently due to start in 2029, but it is still very uncertain.
October 16, 2026 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
lisacommunity.bsky.social
🛰️ A decade after LISA Pathfinder, its data continues to support new research and strengthen the foundations for LISA.

🎉 Mark the anniversary by reading the LPF article in the latest issue of the LIGO Magazine @ligomagazine.bsky.social:
ligo.org/wp-content/u...

#LPF10anniversary #LISAMission
October 7, 2026 at 3:10 PM
ligo.org
How do we get our mirrors their shiniest? A new video from our @ozgrav.bsky.social colleagues looks at the research into our mirror coatings

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOav...

🧪⚛️🔭
How the optics that measure the most violent and powerful events in the universe are made
YouTube video by Science & Medicine ANU
www.youtube.com
October 7, 2026 at 2:34 PM
ligo.org
Lots of great research was presented at our recent Collaboration meeting. Special congratulations to our poster prize winners!

👨‍🔬 Avanish Kulur Ramamohan (Australian National University)
👨‍💻 Ananya Anandharaman (@uofgravity.bsky.social)
👩‍🏫 Ashika Achuthankutty (University of Szeged/HUN-REN Wigner RCP)
Experiment: Avanish Kulur Ramamohan from  Australian National University “Low-Frequency Interferometric Displacement Readout for Opto-Mechanical Newtonian-Noise Detection” Honorable mention: Debanjan Adhikari Data analysis: Ananya Anandharaman from University of Glasgow  “Adapting the Gravity Spy machine learning classifier with Thunderclaps” Honorable mentions: Yogita Kumari & Xavier Garcia Sàbat Theory: Ashika Achuthankutty from University of Szeged and HUN-REN Wigner RCP “Modelling neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories” Honorable mentions: Saurabh Kumar & Anirudh Nemmani  Thanking our judges: Nancy Aggarwal, Jack Callaghan, Divyajyoti, K G Arun, Prayush Kumar, Rahul Kashyap
October 1, 2026 at 1:13 PM
ligo.org
Congratulations to collaboration members on winning @rsef-esp.bsky.social prizes

José María Ezquiaga Bravo of the Niels Bohr Institute has won the young researcher in theoretical physics award

David Keitel and Josep Blai Covas Vidal and of @uib.cat have won the award for best outreach contribution
Universitat de les Illes Balears researchers Josep Blai Covas Vidal and David Keitel holding a copy of Física celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first observation of gravitational waves. David looks very happy, while Josep is more stoic. Credit: A Costa/UIB Jose M. Ezquiaga in a dramatic black-and-white portrait. Credit: Jose M. Ezquiaga
September 30, 2026 at 9:05 AM
ligo.org
The latest issue of the @ligomagazine.bsky.social is now out with all the latest #GravitationalWaves news!

Read it for free at ligo.org/wp-content/u...

🔭🧪⚛️🎶
LIGO Magazine Issue 29 A+ bigger beamsplitters: A major upgrade for LIGO's A+ phase, p 18 GWTC-5.0 - the catalogue continues: 161 events added to the collection, p 6 LIGO Virgo KAGRA teamwork: Gravitational-wave autotune, p 8 Sept. 2026 LVK Meeting in Pune: GW research in India, p 11 A decade on... LISA Pathfinder persists in discovery, p 28
September 25, 2026 at 9:41 AM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
lisacommunity.bsky.social
What do black holes and comic books have in common? More than you'd think.

📖 Read it for free: blackholecomicbook.com
A starry space scene with a glowing orange-black figure representing the black hole and its accretion disk, a small character and a floating figure at left, and the text “BLACK HOLES” in orange letters.
September 16, 2026 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
sciencejedi.bsky.social
Happy Gravitational Wave Detection Day, the anniversary of #GW150914! 2 black holes, the largest "stellar mass black holes" we had ever detected at that time (36 and 29 solar masses), merged 1.3 billion lyr away! My blog from the announcement in February: writescience.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/t...
The Harmonies of Spacetime — GW150914
by Shane L. Larson I have a good friend, Tyson, whom I don’t get to see nearly often enough. We are both privileged to be among the first generation of scientists who will know the Universe by obse…
writescience.wordpress.com
September 15, 2026 at 2:40 AM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
astronerdika.bsky.social
OTD 11 years ago we discovered an event that birthed a whole new field of astronomy ✨

Happy Birthday #GW150914! 🥳

#GravitationalWaves #BlackHoles
Image of Figure 1 of the discovery paper showing an eight panel plot with 2 columns and 4 rows. Each row shows the observed gravitational wave signal over time, reconstructed signal against waveform template over time, the residual over time and frequency time graph showing the signal amplitude in colour map. Each column shows the signal observed in each of the LIGO detectors.
September 14, 2026 at 9:51 AM
ligo.org
Happy birthday #GW150914!

11 years ago today, we caught our first gravitational wave, and founded a new type of astronomy

A decade later, we now have hundreds of observations!

🔭🧪🎂
Classic plot showing GW150914. Filtered data from LIGO Livingston and LIGO Hanford are shown, both show the characteristic signal of a binary black hole. Crucially, data from the two observatories agree, indicating a real signal.
September 14, 2026 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
jorgepullin.bsky.social
The Y arm valves were opened and LIGO Livingston enters the commissioning phase for the next observing run. I couldn't find a picture of the Y arm valves, so here's a picture of me inside the Y-end 😀
August 14, 2026 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
asleepywanderer.bsky.social
I can do simple and detailed!
🧪🔭🐡
A retro "visit LIGO Hanford" poster showing a car along an arm of the LIGO Hanford interferometer, with mountains in the background A realistic digital painting of a sunset with a LIGO Hanford arm in the foreground
September 1, 2026 at 3:28 AM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
egovirgo.bsky.social
EGO’s technical deputy director, Franco Carbognani, accepted the Frontiers of Science Award in Physics on behalf of the Virgo Collaboration, during the International Congress of Basic Science in Beijing, China.
August 26, 2026 at 12:56 PM
ligo.org
We have not yet detected gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars, but this is already telling us something about what they are made from

ligo.org/science-summ...

#NeutronStarWeek 🧪🔭
Neutron stars: smoother than billiard balls – unfortunately – LSC – LIGO Scientific Collaboration
ligo.org
August 22, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
astronerdika.bsky.social
GW170817 gets the limelight because we got lucky* and saw it's electromagnetic counterpart.

But #GW190425 is a pair of neutron stars that really puzzled us because their total mass was much larger than ones we see in our galaxy!

#NeutronStarWeek

📸 arXiv:2001.01761 @ligo.org @egovirgo.bsky.social
Plot comparing the total mass of GW190425 with known binary neutron stars in the Milky Way. The 10 Galactic systems cluster between about 2.5 and 2.9 solar masses, shown by a grey histogram, dashed black distribution, and green individual measurements. GW190425 lies well above them at roughly 3.4 solar masses. This is figure 5 from arXiv:2001.01761
August 21, 2026 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
drspacejunk.bsky.social
'...– maybe it falls
straight through, being so dense, so heavy–
falls through the hardwood, through
the foundation slab, through the ground
beneath, falls through just as if the Earth
were cloud- its atoms so loose,
so far apart, before the falling in.'
#NeutronStarWeek 🧪 🔭 #PoetrySky
August 17, 2026 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
astronerdika.bsky.social
We witnessed two neutron stars collide with both #GravitationalWaves & light OTD in 2017: #GW170817

Just 1.7 secs after the merger was saw a gamma-ray burst, and then ~11 hours later astronomers found a new point of light in NGC 4993: the kilonova ✨

#NeutronStarWeek @ligo.org @egovirgo.bsky.social
Infographic, created by Shanika Galaudage, featuring GW170817, about 130,000,000 light-years from Earth. Two stylised pale-blue neutron stars are shown spiralling together amid blue orbital curves and a purple-white burst. Text reads, “GW170817" and "first neutron star merger observed in both gravitational waves AND light!” An orange handwritten font style note says, “these neutron stars are no more :(”. The background continues a map of the Universe, with dashed, logarithmically spaced distance contours and an orange dot marking the location of GW170817.
August 17, 2026 at 9:21 PM
ligo.org
Can we make #NeutronStarWeek happen?

Please share your favourite neutron star-related material (even if it is super dense)

🔭☄️
rami.spaceaustralia.com CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · Aug 16
So why did @astronerdika.bsky.social and I think this week should be #NeutronStarWeek?

Well, two big things happened in August for Neutron Stars!

Firstly, today is the anniversary of the double neutron star merger event - #GW170817 detected by @ligo.org @egovirgo.bsky.social

Listen to the chirp!
GW170817 Spectrogram + Template Audio
YouTube video by LIGO Virgo KAGRA
www.youtube.com
August 17, 2026 at 3:16 PM
ligo.org
Happy birthday #GW170817, our first observation of a binary neutron star and first gravitational-wave detection with a multimessenger counterpart

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yt5...

🔭🧪⚛️ #NeutronStarWeek
Discovery Plot: GRB170817A
YouTube video by LIGO Virgo KAGRA
www.youtube.com
August 17, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by LIGO Scientific Collaboration
cplberry.bsky.social
Excited that this paper is finally published! It was super fun to work on

doi.org/10.1103/gzrj...

🔭🧪⚛️☄️
August 14, 2026 at 4:55 PM
ligo.org
Yesterday's eclipse captured by our collaboration members in Mallorca

The 1919 eclipse was famously used as a test of Einstein's general relativity. We now test it using stronger gravitational fields than the Sun's

📷 D Keitel @dkeitel.bsky.social, A Calafat & J-R Merou
Photo of the total solar eclipse showing the corona around the masked Sun. By Alicia Calafat Photo of the total solar eclipse, showing the Sun over the ocean, and Mallorca's coastal landscape. By David Keitel
August 13, 2026 at 8:03 PM