Unraveling Cosmic Secrets

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The team of scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO for short, at the Hanford Site Observatory in Washington state were conducting routine research when they detected what appeared to be a group of gravitational waves. The Hanford Site was established around 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, a research effort by US scientists to end the second world war by producing an atom bomb. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used to make Fat Man, the ordinance used in the bombing of Nagasaki Japan in 1945. 

A major Superfund effort was undertaken in 1989 to clean up the mess left by the inevitable mishandling of fissile material by the US Army. The last plutonium reactor, dubbed the N Reactor, was shut down and stopped generating electricity in 1987, the nearby Columbia River having been dammed over eleven times and supplying a better alternative for many years. LIGO was built in late 1994 and has been operating as a gravitational wave observatory. In 2015, the site was designated a US National Park where tourists can view the infamous B Reactor after receiving basic training in safety, security, and environmental protection from the US Department of Energy. 


Led by Dr. Li, the LIGO team immediately set to work analyzing the signal. The project had measured a number of waves over the recent years and they were ready to capture the incoming data for this group. It was very exciting because this was the largest amount of waves to be detected in such a short period, resulting in a flood of data to review. It would take several months and stretch into the next year to analyze it all. Readings from other interferometers from across the globe and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, would need to be confirmed and coordinated.

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