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LIGO

A view of the LIGO detector's interior, showcasing its vast, symmetrical structure with reflective surfaces and illuminated panels, set against a dark sky.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, a pair of L-shaped detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, each with four-kilometre arms. Stored laser light bounces back and forth between mirrors at the ends, and an interferometer watches for a difference in path length caused by a passing gravitational wave. On 14 September 2015 it caught its first signal, a binary black-hole merger; the discovery won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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