LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date

Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by kens on Monday July 14, 2025 @05:49PM (#44565731)

A month ago, the proposed NSF budget would shut down one of the two LIGO observatories in the US, wrecking its ability to triangulate the location of events such as this black hole merger. A shutdown would also severely damage the noise margins and detection rate. Does anyone know if the shutdown is still planned? (I couldn't find any recent info.)

https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-s-proposed-cut...

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by ac794 on Monday July 14, 2025 @06:03PM (#44565829)

I believe the proposed budget is being marked up tomorrow (July 15th, 12:00). Currently the NSF budget is set to be ~$7 billion, a 23% cut compared to FY2025. I'm not sure how this affects LIGO exactly.

https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republic...

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by amarcheschi on Monday July 14, 2025 @06:21PM (#44565987)

I had read something less recent than what you posted, but in that is said about 40% of ligo funding would be cut https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-s-proposed-cut...

Then again, your file has less drastic reductions on nsf budget so who knows what would be the impact on ligo

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by bee_rider on Monday July 14, 2025 @10:42PM (#44567374)

I wonder why Bezos doesn’t just pick up the tab, he likes space, right?

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by jedberg on Monday July 14, 2025 @07:32PM (#44566471)

> I believe the proposed budget is being marked up tomorrow (July 15th, 12:00)

Interesting that they break this news today. Props to them for playing the game.

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by amarcheschi on Monday July 14, 2025 @06:09PM (#44565883)

I was last week at an event in Pisa at virgo ego (basically ligo's cousin). It was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of finding gravitational waves iirc. There were an actress reading from the book the director of the Italian program wrote accompanied by the sound of waves made with sax. I can't describe it with words but it was truly moving.

There were also moments dedicated to interviewing a science communicator and the director of the virgo center, and he was, let's say, quite angry at the thought of ligo losing funding. Rightfully so

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by TMEHpodcast on Monday July 14, 2025 @07:21PM (#44566413)

Keep an eye on whether the final FY 2026 appropriations bill keeps LIGO at two sites. Until then, it’s a real risk, but salvageable.

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by BurningFrog on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @02:12AM (#44568322)

So maybe that is why this discovery from 2023 gets published right now.

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by gus_massa on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @08:38AM (#44570515)

I think all the previous events were announced with a big delay. They have a long pipeline of checks. The signals have too much noise and it's difficult not to cheat and find fake signals in the noise. IIRC they even have a team that adds secretly fake signals to ensure the pipeline is working and after it's detected the team disclose if it's real or fake, before publication.

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by robin_reala on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @04:12AM (#44569037)

Given that there’s a handful of gravitational-wave observatories running globally at this point, why does the closure of one LIGO wreck triangulation?

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by agos on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @07:16AM (#44569961)

the collaboration to be able to triangulate is composed of LIGO, Virgo and now KAGRA. KAGRA is not yet fully ready for longer observation runs, so for now it's basically LIGO and Virgo - and if you take offline one of three, triangulation becomes nearly useless

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Re:LIGO Detects Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date by robin_reala on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @08:55AM (#44570648)

Looking at their Grafana dashboard, it looks like GEO600 and KAGRA are both observing? https://online.ligo.org/grafana/public-dashboards/1a0efabe65...

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