Public Science Lecture Series - The Dawn of Gravitational Wave Astronomy
Date and Time
Location
The Dawn of Gravitational Wave Astronomy presented by Lisa Barsotti
On August 17, 2017, only a couple of years after the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary black hole system, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) observed gravitational waves from a new source: a binary neutron star system. Tens of telescopes, on the Earth and in space, followed-up the event, shedding light on some of the big mysteries of our Universe, from the origin of extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies - the Gamma Ray Bursts - to the formation of heavy metals on Earth. In my talk I will describe these discoveries, how they help us to improve our understanding of the Universe, and what we can expect from future observations.