Gravitational Wave Events

Toured Hanford and was amazed by the technology. Then I asked “where’s the indication that the detector saw something” and was astonished when told that the facility had no such readout. Looking back I’m guessing everyone there had this app on their phone. Great work and thank you for sharing!

This app provides realtime alerts and reporting from around the world on the emerging field of Gravitational Wave Astronomy. It allows one to filter on and receive notifications for event types of interest. I enjoy getting notifications every few days on some new event or observations. Especially fascinating are events involving neutron stars, since they are the most likely to have remnants that can be observed by other means. I have read practically every report by teams trying to correlate observations of neutron star events, and am always amazed by the different teams of astronomers working together to understand the nature of the universe. This app is perfect for anyone who wishes to experience real-time and understand this emerging field and technology better.

That my iphone vibrates at the same time as astronomers around the world are being alerted is beyond cool. I use the app almost daily to check which detectors are on line. I also use the seismometers to monitor world wide earthquakes. LIGO has some of the best to know when the earth is quiet enough for gravity wave science. I think the communications on the app are mostly for professionals and simple questions will get referred to the excellent list of links. Sometimes a pro will answer questions not found in faqs, but it think it was not intended as a big public chat group. I thank the author for allowing the public a front row seat to the events and science going on.