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Journalism of Courage
Written by Ruta Patil
The outreach wing of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory India (LIGO India) mega science project joined the global celebration of the 10th anniversary of the first direct detection of Gravitational waves, 100 years since it was predicted. At an event held at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA, Pune) on Sunday evening, authorities also released a statement about a new discovery by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA ( LVK) collaboration regarding the signal GW250114.
This signal, three times louder than GW150914, confirmed two unique properties of black holes: their ‘ringdown’, where merged black holes vibrate like fading bells, and the principle that black hole areas always increase after mergers. Scientists from the LIGO-India Scientific Collaboration (LISC) made significant contributions in the analysis and interpretation of this signal.
Prof. Sanjit Mitra, LIGO-India Science Spokesperson, on the occasion said that Gravitational Wave Astronomy has changed our understanding of the universe in a massive way since its beginning ten years ago. But, then, this is just the beginning. “A major boost in science is expected once the LIGO-India detector starts operating by 2030,” he said in an official statement..
A panel of prominent personalities in field of astronomy, which included P Ajith (ICTS-TIFR Bengaluru), Archana Pai (IIT Bombay), Anand Sengupta (IIT Gandhinagar), Subroto Mukherjee (IPR Gandhinagar), Sanjit Mitra (IUCAA Pune), and Rajesh Nayak (IISER Kolkata) reflected on the past decade of gravitational wave astronomy and India’s growing role through the LIGO-India project in Hingoli, Maharashtra, expected to be operational by 2030.
Prof. Archana Pai, Principal Investigator, LIGO-India Scientific Collaboration on the occasion said that gravitational wave astronomy has quickly become an exciting field. “In the next decade or so, with future observation runs, we will understand much more about compact binaries with neutron stars, or black holes; their population, distribution, and how they form,” Prof Pai said in a statement.
Following a series of astronomy- themed games, a talk ranging from the discovery of gravity to the future of gravitational wave astronomy, was delivered by Sanjeev Dhurandhar, IUACC Processor who was a part of the Indian team which contributed to the detection of gravitational waves.
LIGO-India, will host a third LIGO detector on Indian soil, complementing the ones at Livingston and Hanford and joining the global network of GW detectors consisting of the LIGOs, Virgo (Italy), and KAGRA (Japan). This will enable significant improvement in detection capabilities and improve the localization of the sources in the sky. The detector is currently under construction in Hingoli district in Maharashtra and is expected to be operational by 2030.
