Monthly Archives: February 2016

Gravitational wave event data from LIGO

Gravitational Waves Detected

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Gravitation wave discovery data
Visualisation of the gravitational wave event data from the two LIGO observatories in Hanford, Washington and Livingstone, Louisiana confirming the black hole merger. Both plots show the frequency of the event signal sweeping sharply upwards, from 35 Hz to about 150 Hz over two tenths of a second. From ‘Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger’ B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration) Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 – Published 11 February 2016

The first ever confirmed detection of gravitational waves has been announced by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) at a press conference held in Washington DC at 10:30 EST on Thurday, 11 February 2016 .

LIGO’s detection of ripples in the fabric of spacetime has been heralded as one of the scientific breakthroughs of the century and promises to mark the  dawn of a new science of gravitational-wave astronomy.
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Visualisation of newly discovered galaxies

Hundreds of new galaxies discovered behind the Milky Way

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A visualisation showing the coordinates of the new ‘hidden galaxies’. We are at the centre, with blue representing galaxies found in other surveys and other colours showing the locations of the new galaxies. Credit: ICRAR

A new multibeam receiver on the Parkes radio telescope in Australia has been used to produce a map of 883 nearby galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way, a third of which were previously unknown.
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