Members of the School of Physics and Astronomy have produced a number of educational and outreach resources, listed below. Websites and resources by other members of the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration are at the bottom of the page.
Black Hole Hunter
Can you detect a gravitational wave? Using Einstein’s General theory of Relativity, scientists predicted that when black holes collide, they produce gravitational waves traveling at the speed of light in all directions. When these gravitational waves reach the Earth, they produce minute vibrations which can be detected by the LIGO gravitational wave detector. The vibrations in the detector can be turned into a sound, allowing you to hear black hole collisions. However, other things can produce vibrations in the detector, such as an earthquake on the other side of the world or traffic a few miles away. This creates noise in the detectors which makes it harder to hear the gravitational wave signal. In Black Hole Hunter, your objective is to listen to gravitational wave detector data and determine whether or not you can hear the given gravitational wave signal in the sound file, or whether it is just noise. So Play Now, and hear the sound track of the universe …
Black Hole Bubble Plot
LIGO is by no means the first experiment to detect black holes, with x-ray measurements suggesting their presence. However, the black holes it has found are larger than most others. This simple website compares the sizes and masses of known black holes.
Compact Binary Catalogue
The LIGO measurements reveal an awful lot about the black holes in the detected systems. This webpage allows you to explore what we know in the form of an interactive graph. Can you spot any patterns, between the black holes’ masses or spins, or the signal strength and distance? As more black holes are detected by LIGO over the coming years, this graph will evolve and grow.
Gravoscope
Gravoscope combines two distinct views of the Universe. You can explore our Galaxy (the Milky Way) and the distant Universe in a range of wavelengths from gamma-rays to the longest radio waves. Change the wavelength using the slider in the top right of the screen and explore space using your mouse.
Gravoscope also allows you to overlay the projected possible locations of gravitational waves detected by Advanced LIGO. Use the options in the bottom left to turn them on and off. The positions cover large areas of sky because trangulation of gravitational wave signals is very difficult, and the location is only constrained to an area on the sky. The more likely regions are brighter.
Other LIGO resources
There are a number of resources that have been created by other members of the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration:
- LIGO Educational Resources – a range of educational resources from around the LIGO collaboration
- LIGO Science Summaries – summaries of LIGO publications, explained for a more general audience
- Gravitational Wave Sensitivity Curve Plotter – plot the strengths and sensitivities of gravitational wave sources and detectors
- Pocket Black Hole phone/tablet app – play with the light-bending effects of a black hole
- Space Time Quest – take charge of $100 million and design your own gravitational wave interferometer
