UMD Physicists are heavily involved with the LIGO collaboration, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory that detects and analyzes gravitational waves to study distant celestial phenomena. Several recent papers have announced important new findings. One highlight is the observation of merging black holes including the largest one yet observed in such a merger.

 The merger of these massive objects distorts spacetime around it, creating a ripple that we can detect here on earth through the use of extremely precise interferometery. Some of you may recall presentations we hosted a few years ago when LIGO announced their first detections. New research from this team is coming in all the time!

 Read more about recent discoveries:

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