The Ligo and Virgo detectors are back in operation. The hunt for gravitational waves resumes.
The Japanese Kagra detector will participate in data collection in the last months of 2024, due to damage caused by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake on January 1, 2024. The new observation campaign, the fourth and lasting a total of 18 months, began in May 2023 and now faces the second phase. In the first seven and a half months of the campaign, 81 highly probable gravity event candidates were identified, confirming the frequency of detection of an event every 2 to 3 days. Consequently, at the end of this observation period, in February 2025, the total number of observed gravitational signals could exceed 200, says the Ligo collaboration. The data from this cycle of observations we will further contribute to significantly broaden our horizons and our knowledge on the darkest and most violent parts of the Universe, says Patrick Brady, spokesperson for the Ligos. The Virgo detector has improved to the point of being able to detect the collision of two neutron stars up to a distance of approximately 220 million light years.