LIGO Scientific Collaboration

The universe is humming with ripples in spacetime

www.space.com/astronomy/bl... from @space.com discusses our #GWTC4

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Please make sure to have a good spotter before lifting any of our optics

Screenshot of LIGO Magazine article "Work After LIGO: From data analysis to machine learning" by Lucía Santamaría. The image shows the article columns as well as a photo of Lucía sat working at her laptop facing the camera. Photo credit: Lucía Santamaría.

LIGO members have gone on to many varied careers, including computational linguistics.

Read about Lucía Santamaría's experience working on machine translation in @ligomagazine.bsky.social: ligo.org/wp-content/u...

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From March 9th to March 13th, Pisa will be home to the global gravitational waves community! EGO and Virgo will host the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration Meeting, the biannual meeting of the gravitational wave community, for the first time in Italy after more than a decade.

🧐 How many theories can be verified with a single #GravitationalWave signal? At least three, if this signal is GW250114, observed by the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration in January 2025.

#10yearsofGravitationalWaves #GW10

The suspension goes into the chamber. I am the one holding the insertion arm on the right. This is a dangerous device, as its folds are effectively massive "scissors" ready to cut fingers or worse, so it has to be kept under control all the time. Video credit: Maryrose barrios. @ LIGO - Livingston

Later today!

🍂 What if a black hole born from the merger of two black holes merged with another black hole? We may find out thanks to gravitational waves, such as those observed by the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration in autumn 2024. Let's learn about these signals!

We see you are discussing with @cplberry.bsky.social. As the two LIGO detectors are nearly aligned, we are really only sensitive to one polarization (what you call that is arbitrary), but Virgo has a different alignment. This allows us to test polarization content e.g., ligo.org/science-summ...

Webinar GWTC-4.0: Methods for Identifying and Characterizing Gravitational-wave Transients 19 February 2026 from 15:00 UTC Background image: An artistic representation of a binary black hole merger by Aurore Simonnet

Our next LIGO @egovirgo.bsky.social KAGRA webinar will introduce the analysis methods used for our #GWTC4 results (paper arxiv.org/abs/2508.18081)

19 February at 15:00 UTC, with the recording on YouTube after

Register for free wisconsin-edu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

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From Exhibits to Proposals: Kim Burtnyk on Scientific Communication Kim Burtnyk shares her journey into science communication, her work as techincal writer and editor at LIGO Lab, and advice for aspiring communicators.

From Viviana Cáceres: Kim Burtnyk shares her journey into science communication, her work as technical writer and editor at LIGO Lab, and advice for aspiring communicators. ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪
astrobites.org/2026/02/13/k...

The suspension was built in a clean room of the optics lab. It had to be transported to the interferometer. As it weighs close to 90kg we used a Genie lift with a special fixture we built. Here is the pickup moment. I am the one manning the crank. Video credit: Maryrose Barrios. @ LIGO - Livingston

It has been a busy first decade for gravitational-wave astronomy

Here is to another decade of discoveries!

#GW10Years

What I really love about this documentary is how in just a few minutes it shows the impact of the discovery—not just on science, but how it has inspired and motivated individuals, and how technology is finding applications in so many areas of life

🔭🧪⚛️🎢 #GW10Years

I made this animation a few years ago but wasn't able to share it back then because gifs weren't supported. Now I can!

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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 💞💗💓

Yesterday at Palazzo Farnese in Rome, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves with an event organised by
the Italian Ministry for University and Research, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), @cnrs.fr and EGO (more below)

Yesterday at the Planetarium of Rome, on the tenth anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves, the film for planetariums "Einstein Telescope, listening to the universe beyond the stars" was screened for the first time.

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

I'm looking-forward to compering this exciting discussion on Thursday!

I refuse to accept that it's been TEN YEARS since I sat in that room 😭

A delicious representation of a binary black hole merger!

Perfect! We hope it is comfy

Sounds like a delicious hypothesis. Please let us know the conclusions of your research

Gravitational Waves

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the announcement of the direct detection of gravitational waves by @ligo.org. In honor of that milestone, we've put together a collection of our coverage of gravitational-wave research through the years. #LIGO #gravitationalwaves #physics #astronomy

Thank you. We hope you enjoy some treats in honor of the anniversary too!

Thank you Martin!

The cover of Physical Review Letters Volume 116, Number 6 featuring a cover image representing our paper: a diagram of a binary black hole coalescence over the data from our two observatories.

Altmetric score in context for the paper: #972 of 31,708,647 outputs #1 of 48,869 outputs from Physical Review Letters #4 of 437,630 outputs of a similar age #1 of 574 outputs of a similar age from Physical Review Letters

10 years ago today, our discovery paper was published in Physical Review Letters

doi.org/10.1103/Phys...

It has gone on to be highly cited. But it has also had an impact outside of academia—its @altmetric.com is in the top 1000

aps.altmetric.com/details/5333...

#GW10Years #OTD #OpenAccess 🔭⚛️🧪

We're rather proud of this paper (which is free to read)

#GW10Years

Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger Gravitational waves emitted by the merger of two black holes have been detected, setting the course for a new era of observational astrophysics.

#OTD Ten years ago, PRL published the @ligo.org discovery paper

Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...