{"id":34335,"date":"2023-04-11T12:53:30","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T07:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34335"},"modified":"2025-04-20T12:39:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T07:09:17","slug":"laser-interferometer-gravitational-wave-observatory-ligo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/laser-interferometer-gravitational-wave-observatory-ligo\/","title":{"rendered":"Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is LIGO?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Historical Background on LIGO<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Introduction of LIGO<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is LIGO-Virgo?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About LIGO India Project<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>LIGO KAGRA<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Central government has given the final go-ahead to India\u2019s <strong>L<\/strong>aser <strong>I<\/strong>nterferometer <strong>G<\/strong>ravitational-wave <strong>O<\/strong>bservatory, or LIGO project.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is LIGO?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>LIGO stands for &#8220;Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong><u>an international network of laboratories<\/u><\/strong> that detect the ripples in spacetime produced by the movement of large celestial objects like stars and planets.<\/li>\n<li>LIGO consists of two widely-separated interferometers within the United States\u2014one in <strong>Hanford, Washington <\/strong>and the other in <strong>Livingston, Louisiana<\/strong>\u2014operated in unison to <strong><u>detect gravitational waves<\/u><\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Such signals come from massive objects in the universe, such as black holes and neutron stars, and provide astronomers with an entirely new window to observe cosmic phenomena.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Historical Background on LIGO<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>LIGO&#8217;s underlying mechanisms rely on the work of the famous physicist <strong>Albert Einstein<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Einstein in his <strong><u>Theory of Relativity<\/u><\/strong> predicted the <i><strong>existence of gravitational waves, analogous to electromagnetic waves, more than a century ago<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Einstein believed that such waves were too weak to ever be feasibly detected.<\/li>\n<li>Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, the researchers-built prototype gravitational wave detectors using free-hanging mirrors that bounced a laser between them.<\/li>\n<li>If a gravitational wave passed through the apparatus, it would wiggle the fabric of space-time and cause the mirrors to move ever so slightly.<\/li>\n<li>This device, known as an <strong>Interferometer<\/strong>, is still the basic unit inside today&#8217;s gravitational wave detectors.<\/li>\n<li>Though those early models didn&#8217;t have the sensitivity necessary to capture a gravitational wave signal, progress continued for several decades.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Introduction of LIGO<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/bbAIPnc8jQI5oIc-oE5nS_lFcQ729oFt4K5WYi10NKQExw-e-rSxAnzTvsaWx-4On0-cmNz1pmcg7perbwlNKMos1KkkHcvCe8EfZfkXPLZVuW_dalMKfu3ibK0JmMQ-mJ6GCdyd2b1leiLnMnyx3xo\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: LIGO Observatories<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 1990, the US-based National Science Foundation approved the assembly of two LIGO detectors; one in Hanford, Washington and another in Livingston, Louisiana.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Construction of both detectors was completed in 1999<\/u><\/strong> and the search for gravitational waves began a few years later.<\/li>\n<li>For more than a decade, the detectors continued to come up empty, as physicists learned how to handle the highly sensitive instruments and all the things that could go wrong.<\/li>\n<li>LIGO was completely redesigned for greater sensitivity between 2010 and 2014. The hard work paid off.<\/li>\n<li>Within days of the instruments being turned on in September 2015, the observatory began picking up the signature of its first gravitational waves.\n<ul>\n<li>LIGO had detected the collision of two black holes 29 and 36 times more massive than the sun, respectively, that occurred nearly 1.3 billion years ago.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is LIGO-Virgo?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Apart from the two Interferometers based in the US, there is a third interferometer as well.<\/li>\n<li>It is located in <strong><u>Santo Stefano, Italy<\/u><\/strong> and known as <strong>LIGO-Virgo<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Working in collaboration, the three facilities help confirm that any signal one facility picks up is a true gravitational wave detection and not random noise.<\/li>\n<li>In January 2020, LIGO-Virgo detected a collision between a black hole and a neutron star.<\/li>\n<li><i><strong>Researchers have created some of the quietest spots in the world around the gravitational wave detectors<\/strong><\/i>, slowing down nearby traffic, monitoring every tiny tremor in the ground, and even suspending the detection equipment from a pendulum system that minimizes vibrations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About LIGO India Project<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>LIGO-India received the Central government&#8217;s in-principal approval in February <strong>2016<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Since then, the project reached several milestones towards selecting and acquiring a site and building the observatory.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>LIGO-India will be located in <strong><u>Hingoli district of Maharashtra<\/u><\/strong>, about 450 km east of Mumbai, and is scheduled to begin scientific runs from <strong>2030<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The project will be built by the <strong><u>Department of Atomic Energy<\/u><\/strong> (DAE) and the <strong><u>Department of Science and Technology<\/u><\/strong> (DST), Government of India, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the <strong><u>National Science Foundation<\/u><\/strong> (NSF), USA.<\/li>\n<li>Recently, the Union Cabinet gave the final approval and cleared the <strong><u>Rs 2,600-crore project<\/u><\/strong> to construct and set up the facility in Hingoli, Maharashtra.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>LIGO KAGRA<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>KAGRA is a gravitational wave detector, located underground in Gifu Prefecture, <strong>Japan<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is Asia&#8217;s first gravitational wave observatory.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is the meaning of Black Hole?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape its event horizon.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)<\/strong> <strong>What do gravitational waves explain?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Gravitational waves are <strong>ripples in spacetime<\/strong>. When objects move, the curvature of spacetime changes and these changes move outwards (like ripples on a pond) as gravitational waves. A gravitational wave is a stretch and squash of space and so can be found by measuring the change in length between two objects.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-sci-tech\/ligo-india-global-network-labs-study-gravitational-waves-8545293\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>What is LIGO-India, the Indian node in the global network of labs to probe the universe<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/cabinet-clears-rs-2600-crore-ligo-india-observatory-to-come-up-in-maharashtra-will-be-part-of-global-network\/articleshow\/99309532.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>ToI<\/u><\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LIGO is the world&#8217;s largest gravitational wave observatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}