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LIGO Scientific Collaboration
@ligo.org
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Official account of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. We detect gravitational waves!

Email: questions@ligo.org
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egovirgo.bsky.social
LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA constantly battle with quantum effects on their mirrors (objects weighing more than 40 kg!), such as quantum radiation pressure noise, that is, fluctuations of the laser field that causes the mirrors to jitter.
October 8, 2025 at 7:50 AM
ligo.org
To convert 15:00 UTC to your timezone you can use www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/c...
Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator
Find the exact time difference with the Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator which converts the time difference between places and time zones all over the world.
www.timeanddate.com
November 12, 2025 at 11:10 AM
ligo.org
Not Their First Rodeo: Gravitational Wave Detectors Spot Merging Black Holes That Have Merged Before

aasnova.org/2025/10/28/n... by Kerry Hensley

@aasnova.org report on our discovery of #GW241011 and #GW241110

🔭☄️🧪⚛️
Not Their First Rodeo: Gravitational Wave Detectors Spot Merging Black Holes That Have Merged Before
The gravitational wave events GW241011 and GW241110 provide strong evidence for the growth of black holes through successive mergers.
aasnova.org
November 5, 2025 at 9:55 AM
ligo.org
Our #GW241011 and #GW241110 discovery paper is now on the arXiv

arxiv.org/abs/2510.26931

If you would like to catch up on the highlights, checkout out our Science Summary

ligo.org/science-summ...

🔭☄️⚛️🧪
Screenshot of the arXiv page GW241011 and GW241110: Exploring Binary Formation and Fundamental Physics with Asymmetric, High-Spin Black Hole Coalescence We report the observation of gravitational waves from two binary black hole coalescences during the fourth observing run of the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA detector network, GW241011 and GW241110. The sources of these two signals are characterized by rapid and precisely measured primary spins, non-negligible spin--orbit misalignment, and unequal mass ratios between their constituent black holes. These properties are characteristic of binaries in which the more massive object was itself formed from a previous binary black hole merger, and suggest that the sources of GW241011 and GW241110 may have formed in dense stellar environments in which repeated mergers can take place. As the third loudest gravitational-wave event published to date, with a median network signal-to-noise ratio of 36.0, GW241011 furthermore yields stringent constraints on the Kerr nature of black holes, the multipolar structure of gravitational-wave generation, and the existence of ultralight bosons within the mass range 10−13--10−12 eV. arXiv:2510.26931 [astro-ph.HE]
November 4, 2025 at 4:34 PM
ligo.org
Data for #GW241011 and #GW241110 are available to analyze from the Gravitaitonal Wave Open Science Center

doi.org/10.7935/3drz...
doi.org/10.7935/46xh...

You can find lots of tutorials there too!

gwosc.org/tutorials/

#OpenScience #OpenData 🧪🔭☄️⚛️
The gravitational wave signals: the amplitude of the data over time in a combination of the LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston and Virgo detectors for GW241011 (left; Hanford and Virgo) and GW241110 (right; Hanford and Livingston). The merger time of the events is at time = 0.
November 1, 2025 at 11:09 AM
ligo.org
Our new paper on our LIGO @egovirgo.bsky.social KAGRA discovery of #GW241011 and #GW241110 is now published

doi.org/10.3847/2041...

These observations can tell us about the astrophysics of binary formation and test fundamental physics

#O4IsHere #GW10Years
Plots showing how the new detection compare to our previous observations. The top panel shows all the events from the LVK’s most recently published catalog, GWTC-4.0, and our two new events GW241011 and GW241110 ordered by the primary spin projected in the direction of the spin of the orbital plane — in other words, how aligned the primary black hole’s spin direction is with the binary system’s orbit direction. Values greater than zero means the black hole is aligned with the spin of the orbit, whereas less than zero means the system is anti-aligned. The bottom panel shows the distribution of primary mass (the mass of the larger black hole) in solar masses and the mass ratio of the black hole pair for all events from GWTC-4.0 including our new events.
October 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
ligo.org
We would usually consider them as travelling waves
September 29, 2025 at 10:07 AM
ligo.org
A (simplified) interferometer layout made from brownies!

We think it's safe to eat a few more components, and still give a good idea of how things work

🖼️: D Grass

🧵🎂 #GW10Years
An intricate arrangements of brownies representing the various optical components of the LIGO interferometers. It is surprising complicated. Candles in the shape of 10 are to the side.
September 19, 2025 at 5:32 PM
ligo.org
Celebrations at @vanderbilt.edu with artistic arrangements of cupcakes. We would like to analyze some of these. For science, of course

🖼️: C Chatterjee

🧵🎂 #GW10Years
Chocolate cupcakes in the shape of a gravitational-wave signal. Is this a binary merger? It looks like it would have a high mass source? Two clusters of chocolate cupcakes, each trailing an arc of vanilla cupcakes (with sprinkles!). An artistic representation of a black hole binary inspiralling.
September 19, 2025 at 5:32 PM
ligo.org
Two black (hole) forest cakes from Lyon! Real black holes are not as chocolatey

We hope that @ehtelescope.bsky.social approve

🖼️: J Degallaix (@egovirgo.bsky.social)

🧵🎂 #GW10Years
A chocolate cake covered with chocolate shavings, decorated a variety of chocolate sphere representing our black hole observations. There are birthday candles in the shape of 1 and 0 (make a wish!) A chocolate cake topped with a EHT-style image of a black hole and "10 Ans GW150914" as well as two chocolate spheres.
September 19, 2025 at 5:13 PM