TAMU Physics & Astronomy on Instagram: "LIGO detects black hole mergers! 🌀𖣠 Dr. Dawson uses a tabletop interferometer to show how LIGO detects gravitational waves from black hole mergers. A light from a laser hits a beam splitter and travels two separate paths, bouncing off mirrors before recombining. This creates an interference pattern of light and dark fringes due to the wave nature of light. The bright fringes occur when the light combines constructively and the dark fringes occur when the

'New Era' of Astrophysics: Why Gravitational Waves Are So Important

Scientists make first direct detection of gravitational waves

The discovery of a gravitational wave 10 years ago shook astrophysics – these ripples in spacetime continue to reveal dark objects in the cosmos