Speaker:

Dr. Gabriela González
Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University
Spokesperson for LIGO Scientific Collaboration

Abstract:

More than hundred years ago, Einstein predicted that there were ripples in the fabric of space-time traveling at the speed of light: gravitational waves. On September 14 2015, the LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana registered for the first time ever a loud gravitational wave signal traveling through Earth, created more than a billion years ago by the merger of two black holes. A few months later, in December 2015, another signal, also from black holes, was detected. These observations marked the beginning of gravitational wave astronomy. We will describe the history and details of the observations, and the gravity-bright future of the field.