LIGO, AIGO, VIRGO, MiniGRAIL, GEO600 ...the multi million dollar machines that can detect gravity waves from space objects




[link to www.technologyreview.com]




I was a skeptic about Niburu until I was told about these gravity wave detection stations. These systems make up an early warning network, that can pin-point the source of a celestial body causing gravity flux…aka Niburu. American detectors were built at a cost of $365 million dollars in 2002.

...There are many more of these detectors around the world.
...mission is to directly observe gravitational waves of cosmic origin.

In August 2002, LIGO began its search for cosmic gravitational waves. Measurable emissions of gravitational waves are expected from binary systems (collisions and coalescences of neutron stars or black holes), supernova of massive stars (which form neutron stars and black holes), accreting neutron stars, rotations of neutron stars with deformed crusts, and the remnants of gravitational radiation created by the birth of the universe.

LIGO operates two gravitational wave observatories in unison: the LIGO Livingston Observatory in Livingston, Louisiana, and the LIGO Hanford Observatory, on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington. These sites are separated by 3,002 kilometers (1,865 miles). Since gravitational waves are expected to travel at the speed of light, this distance corresponds to a difference in gravitational wave arrival times of up to ten milliseconds. Through the use of triangulation, the difference in arrival times can determine the source of the wave in the sky. Each observatory supports an L-shaped ultra high vacuum system, measuring 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) on each side. Up to five interferometers can be set up in each vacuum system. At the Hanford Observatory, a second interferometer operates in parallel with the primary interferometer. This second detector is half the length at 2 kilometers (1.25 miles).

Southern Hemisphere detectors...
AIGO in Australia [link to www.aigo.org.au]

The Mario Schenberg (Gravitational Wave Detector, Antenna, or Brazilian Graviton Project[1]) is a spherical, resonant-mass, gravitational wave detector run by the Physics Institute of the University of Sao Paulo. Similar to the Dutch-run MiniGRAIL, the 1.15 ton, 65 cm diameter spherical test mass is suspended in a cryogenic vacuum enclosure, kept at 20 mK; and the sensors (transducers) for this detector/antenna are developed at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), in Sao Jose' dos Campos, Brazil

[link to www.ego-gw.it]

European detectors...

Virgo, the construction of which was completed in June 2003 and is at present is in the commissioning phase, will run day and night listening to all gravitational signals which may arrive at any time and coming from any part of the Universe. The signals are detected, recorded and pre-analysed through an on-line computing system. These data will then be made available to the scientific community for further analysis.

MiniGRAIL is an instrument that is designed to detect gravitational waves. The MiniGRAIL is the first such detector to use a spherical design. It is located at Leiden University in the Netherlands

GEO 600 is a gravitational wave detector located near Sarstedt, Germany. This instrument, and its sister interferometric detectors, when operational, are some of the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors ever designed. They are designed to detect relative changes in distance of the order of one part in 10 to the -21, about the size of a single atom compared to the distance from the Sun to the Earth

[link to gwic.ligo.org (secure)]

GWIC, the Gravitational Wave International Committee, was formed in 1997 to facilitate international collaboration and cooperation in the construction, operation and use of the major gravitational wave detection facilities world-wide.