Detector engineers upgrades Advanced LIGO hardware. Image credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Jeff Kissel

October 2019 saw the first all-female spacewalk, and the discover of 20 new moons of Saturn. There were also more observations of interstellar comet Borisov, and evidence for the Milky Way’s black hole having sent out a violent flare several million years ago. Chris North and Edward Gomez discuss these latest stories.

October also saw a planned hiatus in operations of the LIGO and Virgo detectors, which are mid-way through the third observing run, looking for gravitational waves. We got an update from UBC’s Jess McIver and Cardiff’s Duncan Macleod, who are involved with the operation of the LIGO detectors.They gave an update on how the discovery of gravitational waves unfolds, and what’s planned for the rest of this observing run – including the addition of the Japanese KAGRA detector later this year.

Professor Kip Thorne, one of the founders of LIGO, recently gave a lecture in Cardiff, which is available to watch online.

An extended edition of an original broadcast on 31st October 2019 as part of Pythagoras’ Trousers on Radio Cardiff.