LASER INTERFEROMETER GRAVITATIONAL WAVE OBSERVATORY (LIGO PROJECT) – SCI & TECH
News: National
Technology Day: PM to virtually lay LIGO foundation stone today
What's in the news?
● Prime
Minister Narendra Modi recently laid down the foundation stone of LIGO-India on
the occasion of National Technology Day.
Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory
Project:
● LIGO
is the world's most powerful observatory that exploits the physical properties
of light and of space itself to detect
and understand the origins of gravitational waves.
● At
the moment, there are two such observatories in the US that are separated by a distance
of 3000 kilometres that work in tandem to pick up these gravitational waves.
Working Mechanism:
● LIGO
consists of two 4-km-long vacuum
chambers, set up at right angles to each other, with mirrors at the end.
● When
light rays are released simultaneously in both chambers, they should return at
the same time.
● However,
if a gravitational wave arrives, one
chamber gets elongated while the other gets squished, causing a phase difference in the returning light rays.
● Detecting
this phase difference confirms the presence of a gravitational wave.
First Detection of Gravitational waves:
● In
2015, LIGO detected the gravitational waves for the first time.
● These
Gravitational waves were produced during the merger of two massive black holes
around 1.3 billion years back.
Global Network of Gravitational Waves Observatories:
● LIGO
- USA (Hanford, Livingston) and India
● Virgo
- Italy
● Kangra
- Japan
LIGO India Project:
● LIGO-India
will be an advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in Maharashtra, India, as part of a
worldwide network.
● It
will be the fifth node of the planned
network and will bring India into a prestigious international scientific
experiment.
● It
is envisaged as a collaborative project between a consortium of Indian research institutions and the LIGO Laboratory in
the USA, along with its international partners.
● It
will be built by the Department of
Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology with the U.S.
National Science Foundation and several national and international research
institutions.
● The
Indian LIGO would have two perpendicularly placed 4-km long vacuum chambers,
that constitute the most sensitive interferometers in the world.
● It
is expected to begin scientific runs from 2030.
Importance of LIGO India project:
● LIGO-India
will provide opportunities for Indian youth to pursue research careers in cutting-edge areas of science and
technology.
● It
will lead to advancement in
gravitational-wave astronomy and astrophysics.
● It
will lead to the development of cutting-edge technologies.
Go back to basics:
Gravitational waves:
● Gravitational
waves are 'ripples' in space-time
caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe.
● Albert
Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general
theory of relativity.
● The
strongest gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic events such as colliding black holes, supernovae (massive
stars exploding at the end of their lifetimes), and colliding neutron stars.