The LIGO or the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory was an experimental program that was designed to detect gravitational waves. It began construction in 1998 and officially began operating in September 2002. LIGO has two observatories, one in Hanford and one in Livingston. In addition to the LIGO observatory, there is also the GEO 600 in Germany, the VIRGO detector in Italy, the TAMA 300 in Japan, and the International Gravitational Research Center in Australia. Together all of these observatories work together and have become a worldwide gravitational wave detector.
Using the LIGO and the other observatories scientists will be able to compare the signals detected to locate the point of origin the signals in the sky. With this, these observatories can become one “huge gravity-wave telescope” that is able to provide us with new data about the composition and the behavior of the universe.
