Why is the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA meeting so important? Why do people from all over the world travel to meet in person? Let’s hear it from the participants of the meeting that took place in Pisa this month 🗺️
We had a chat with Marie Anne Bizouard, @cnrs.fr researcher, just after her election as spokesperson of the Virgo Collaboration, during the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration meeting in Pisa 💬
Here’s what she said about this role and the future of Virgo 🎤
We are happy to announce that Marie Anne Bizouard, researcher at @cnrs.fr in Nice, has been elected as the new spokesperson for the Virgo Collaboration, with effect on May 3rd. She is the first woman appointed in this role, since the Collaboration foundation in the late 1980s.
Reposting with corrected time and link
To convert UTC to your timezone you can use www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/c...
Webinar GWTC-4.0: Tests of General Relativity 26 March 2026 from 13:00 UTC Background image: An artistic representation of a binary black hole merger by Aurore Simonnet
Our next LIGO Virgo KAGRA webinar will discuss tests of general relativity with #GWTC4 (papers arxiv.org/abs/2603.19019 arxiv.org/abs/2603.19020 arxiv.org/abs/2603.19021).
26 March at 13:00 UTC, with the recording on YouTube after
Register for free wisconsin-edu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
🔭 ☄️ ⚛️ 🧪
Hello, for a detailed conversation, you may like to use our questions@ligo.org email service
The front cover of the latest edition of the LIGO Magazine. The main cover image highlights Observing Run 4 (O4) results with the headline "O4 A cornucopia of results". The image shows an artistic illustration of a merging black hole binary with swirling reds and blues. Image by Carl Knox / OzGrav / Swinburne.
New #LIGOMagazine out now! :
Check it out at:
👉 www.ligo.org/magazine
where you can find all editions of LIGO Magazine free to download!
@ligo.org - @egovirgo.bsky.social - KAGRA
It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of Alain Brillet, French physicist, who has been one of the founding fathers of gravitational interferometry and Virgo, along with Adalberto Giazotto, who left us in 2017.
We pay tribute to Andrzej Trautman, one of the pioneers of gravitational wave theory and a leading figure in mathematical relativity, who passed away at the age of 93.
The origins of gravitational waves. An illustration showing how a coalescing binary produces a signal. First a long inspiral, then an intense merger, finally a decaying ringdown. By Lucy Reading-Ikkanda
A boom in gravitational waves leaves scientists with more questions than answers: @sciam.bsky.social reports how we still have much to discover after #GWTC4
www.scientificamerican.com/article/what... by @krcallaway.bsky.social
🔭🧪⚛️☄️
Last week over 400 scientists of the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration met in Pisa, Italy for the LVK Meeting, the biannual gathering of the global community studying gravitational waves 🌟🌍
Large paper lying on the ground that shows the time-frequency signal of the first gravitational wave. It consists of small colored paper pieces with illustrations.
So much fun at the #LVK conference in Pisa. My favorite: An illustration of the first gravitational wave signal observed 10 years ago
The universe is humming with ripples in spacetime
www.space.com/astronomy/bl... from @space.com discusses our #GWTC4
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Please make sure to have a good spotter before lifting any of our optics
Screenshot of LIGO Magazine article "Work After LIGO: From data analysis to machine learning" by Lucía Santamaría. The image shows the article columns as well as a photo of Lucía sat working at her laptop facing the camera. Photo credit: Lucía Santamaría.
LIGO members have gone on to many varied careers, including computational linguistics.
Read about Lucía Santamaría's experience working on machine translation in @ligomagazine.bsky.social: ligo.org/wp-content/u...
🧪🎢👩💻
From March 9th to March 13th, Pisa will be home to the global gravitational waves community! EGO and Virgo will host the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration Meeting, the biannual meeting of the gravitational wave community, for the first time in Italy after more than a decade.
🧐 How many theories can be verified with a single #GravitationalWave signal? At least three, if this signal is GW250114, observed by the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration in January 2025.
#10yearsofGravitationalWaves #GW10
The suspension goes into the chamber. I am the one holding the insertion arm on the right. This is a dangerous device, as its folds are effectively massive "scissors" ready to cut fingers or worse, so it has to be kept under control all the time. Video credit: Maryrose barrios. @ LIGO - Livingston
Later today!
🍂 What if a black hole born from the merger of two black holes merged with another black hole? We may find out thanks to gravitational waves, such as those observed by the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration in autumn 2024. Let's learn about these signals!
We see you are discussing with @cplberry.bsky.social. As the two LIGO detectors are nearly aligned, we are really only sensitive to one polarization (what you call that is arbitrary), but Virgo has a different alignment. This allows us to test polarization content e.g., ligo.org/science-summ...
Webinar GWTC-4.0: Methods for Identifying and Characterizing Gravitational-wave Transients 19 February 2026 from 15:00 UTC Background image: An artistic representation of a binary black hole merger by Aurore Simonnet
Our next LIGO @egovirgo.bsky.social KAGRA webinar will introduce the analysis methods used for our #GWTC4 results (paper arxiv.org/abs/2508.18081)
19 February at 15:00 UTC, with the recording on YouTube after
Register for free wisconsin-edu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
🔭 ☄️ ⚛️ 🧪
From Viviana Cáceres: Kim Burtnyk shares her journey into science communication, her work as technical writer and editor at LIGO Lab, and advice for aspiring communicators. ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪
astrobites.org/2026/02/13/k...
The suspension was built in a clean room of the optics lab. It had to be transported to the interferometer. As it weighs close to 90kg we used a Genie lift with a special fixture we built. Here is the pickup moment. I am the one manning the crank. Video credit: Maryrose Barrios. @ LIGO - Livingston
It has been a busy first decade for gravitational-wave astronomy
Here is to another decade of discoveries!
#GW10Years
What I really love about this documentary is how in just a few minutes it shows the impact of the discovery—not just on science, but how it has inspired and motivated individuals, and how technology is finding applications in so many areas of life
🔭🧪⚛️🎢 #GW10Years
I made this animation a few years ago but wasn't able to share it back then because gifs weren't supported. Now I can!
🐡
I Heart gravitational waves + you. Happy Valentine's Day! The heart outline is part of a plot showing the chirp of GW150914. Credit: Zane Zocher, LIGO Hanford.
Pictures of LIGO Hanford, KAGRA, LIGO Livingston and Virgo, with the caption "We'll be your Valentine.... just send us a signal". There is a plot of data from GW150914 before signal, because we really love a gravitational wave signal.
Two hearts inspiralling together, like a binary merger, over a space-themed background. The caption reads "You spin my heart right round, right round." Credit: Zane Zocher, LIGO Hanford.
Artistic representation of a black hole, with an astronaut in a heart. The caption reads "You must be approaching the event horizon... because time seems to stop when I look at you." Credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology
Happy Valentine's Day to all gravitational-wave fans, and especially @egovirgo.bsky.social and KAGRA 💞💗💓
Yesterday at Palazzo Farnese in Rome, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves with an event organised by
the Italian Ministry for University and Research, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), @cnrs.fr and EGO (more below)
Yesterday at the Planetarium of Rome, on the tenth anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves, the film for planetariums "Einstein Telescope, listening to the universe beyond the stars" was screened for the first time.
