Exploring the Gravitational Wave Universe: New Discoveries and the Future of LIGO Astronomy

Measuring gravitational waves is a revolutionary new way to do astronomy. They were predicted by Einstein but we did not have the technology to find them in his lifetime. In 2015, LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) first detected one of these waves - a tiny ripple in space itself, generated by the collision of two black holes. Since then, LIGO and its international partners have measured nearly 100 signals. What can we learn from these bursts of energy from the mergers of black holes or the collision of two neutron stars? How is it possible to measure a wave which stretches our detector 1000 times less than the diameter of a proton? And what's coming next in our search for these tell-tale ripples in space?

Dr. Brian Lantz is a Senior Research Scientist at Stanford University.