LSC | LIGO | Virgo | NSF | MIT | Caltech | 2019 May 02
The discoveries come just weeks after LIGO and Virgo turned back on. The twin detectors of LIGO — one in Washington and one in Louisiana — along with Virgo, located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Italy, resumed operations April 1, after undergoing a series of upgrades to increase their sensitivities to gravitational waves — ripples in space and time. Each detector now surveys larger volumes of the universe than before, searching for extreme events such as smash-ups between black holes and neutron stars. ...
In addition to the two new candidates involving neutron stars, the LIGO-Virgo network has, in this latest run, spotted three likely black hole mergers. In total, since making history with the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015, the network has spotted evidence for two neutron star mergers, 13 black hole mergers, and one possible black hole-neutron star merger. ...
LIGO and Virgo Detect More Neutron Star Coalescences
Albert Einstein Institute | Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics | 2019 May 02
Scientists Find More Evidence the Universe Is a Violent Place
Science & Technology Facilities Council, UK | 2019 May 02
Ancient Star-Crash Detection Ushers New Dawn for Space Discovery
Australian National University | 2019 May 03