Friday, February 19

India to get a LIGO detector that could be online before 2025

The recent detection of gravitational waves did more than just confirm Einstein's theory of relativity; it provided our first direct observational evidence of the existence of black holes. That finding highlights LIGO's new job as an astronomical observatory, able to track some of the most energetic events in the Universe—and possibly discover entirely new classes of events.

But with only two detectors, it's hard to pinpoint where an event is happening. That also makes it hard to direct other instruments to the site, meaning we can't observe the event in visible light or other wavelengths. Which would be rather disappointing if the event's gravitational signal suggests it's something new. Things will get somewhat better when the European VIRGO instrument and Japan's KAGRA detector are integrated with LIGO.

But things are likely to get even better with LIGO-India, which would place a LIGO-style interferometer at a site to be determined in India. While approval only came this week, the project has been under consideration for a while. The site-selection process has already started, and a facility is being built that would receive and validate the LIGO hardware before its installation.

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