> The #Laser #Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a huge installation measured in kilometers that is listening for wrinkles in space-time.

> Gravity causes #space-time to stretch — think back to the diagrams you’ve seen of a massive orb (a star or planet) sitting on a plane with grid lines drawn on it, the fabric of that plane being stretch downward from the mass of the orb. If you have two massive entities like black holes orbiting each other, they give off #gravitational #waves. When they collide and merge, they create a brief but very strong train of waves. Evidence of these events are what #LIGO is looking for.

https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/keynote-video-dr-keith-thorne-explains-the-extreme-engineering-of-the-ligo-hardware/https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/keynote-video-dr-keith-thorne-explains-the-extreme-engineering-of-the-ligo-hardware/