Scientists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have observed gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of spacetime — for the second time. Gravitational waves carry information about their origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained, and physicists have concluded that these gravitational waves were produced during the final moments of the merger of two black holes — eight and 14 times the mass of the sun — to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole that is 21 times the mass of the sun.
The LIGO Observatories are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and were conceived, built and are operated by Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
During his tenure with the NSF, Tim Clancy, the President of Arch Street sat on the internal NSF LIGO Steering Committee that oversaw the budget and program management of the LIGO project during it’s design and construction in the 1990’s.
Credit: Image credit: LIGO/T. Pyle