The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory
Rachel and I drove out the Richland, WA and the LIGO Visitor Center for a tour. If you're not familiar with LIGO, it's an antenna for recording passing gravitational waves. These were predicted by physicists over 100 years ago and by Albert Einstein's 1915 General Theory of Relativity (although he didn't think they were real initially).
Basically, when a massive object accelerates (either linear acceleration or by changing its direction) it emits gravitational waves. These are a distortion of space-time that can be measured with very sensitive equipment. And guess what is best source of these gravitational waves? Coalescing black holes or neutron stars. The first serious attempt at trying to detect them was back in the mid-1960s by physicist Joseph Weber.
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| A Weber Bar or gravitational wave antenna on display at the LIGO Visitor Center. |
Inside the LIGO Visitor Center is an auditorium playing two videos on gravitational wave detection. Outside the auditorium are displays related to the detector and it's construction.
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| A cell for the fused silica glass mirrors in the arms of LIGO. |
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| A close up view of one of the older fused silica mirrors used in LIGO. |
After touring the Visitor Center, a guide takes visitors on a walking tour to the Control Room and the observatory's arms (these arms contain the over two mile long vacuum tubes which laser light bounces through).
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| A sample of the concrete tubes used at the observatory. |
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| The over two mile long concrete walk ways containing the laser's vacuum tubes. |
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| Inside the Control Room where one or more operators monitor how well the observatory is working against sources of noise like weather and earthquakes. |
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| A plaque commemorating the first detection of a gravitational wave. This occurred one hundred years after The General Theory of Relativity's prediction of gravitational waves. |
The LIGO Visitor Center is open the second Saturday of the month. Tours of LIGO are given at 1:30 and 3:00 and are free. Even though this site is on or near the Hanford nuclear facility site, you don't need permission or IDs to visit. Tours are about an hour long and have a small amount of walking. There is a minor elevation change during the guided walking tour that most people should be able to handle (wheel chairs?). You can purchase LIGO swag if you go back to Kennewick, at the Tri-Cities Center.
After the tour, you might consider visiting the wineries in this part of Washington. Also don't forget the Chuckar Cherries shop in Prosser.
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