Adalberto Giazotto leaves us

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The world has lost a physicist of the greatest stature. We in Virgo and EGO lose a maestro and a friend.

We will miss him terribly.

We will miss his acumen, the continuous flow of his ideas. We will miss his phone calls at all hours, to discuss the latest physics problem he had set himself to study. We will miss the continuous stimulation and intellectual exhaustion required to keep up with him.

He leaves a great void, but also an incredibly rich inheritance. We look around us and see those blue tunnels, a cathedral of science, erected thanks to his vision and the obstinacy of this extraordinary man. We look on our desks and we see the articles detailing the events of August.

So thank you, Adalberto, for all of this. You were in time to see a signal, which offers us some relief. And now it is up to us to take on the baton and to keep on looking forward, beyond, in the way you have always done.

Posted: 16/11/2017

GW170608, the lightest binary black hole merger detected so far by LIGO and Virgo

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LIGO and Virgo have confirmed yet another detection from their fruitful observing run earlier this year.

Dubbed GW170608, the latest discovery was produced by the merger of two relatively light black holes, 12 and 7 times the mass of the Sun, at a distance of about a thousand million light-years from Earth. This event was detected by the two LIGO detectors on June 8, 2017; for this detection, Virgo was still in a commissioning phase; it started taking data on August 1.

Supplementary materials

Science paper

Posted: 16/11/2017

Virgo congratulates Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish for the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics

Four signals...three detectors...two collaborations...one Nobel Prize!

The Virgo collaboration warmly congratulates Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish on the award of the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics 'for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves'.

Press announcement

Nobel Prize website

Posted: 03/10/2017

VIRGO joins LIGO for the O2 data-taking period

Today, Tuesday August 1st 2017, the VIRGO detector located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Cascina (near Pisa, Italy) has officially joined the “Observation Run 2” (O2) and is now taking data alongside the American-based twin LIGO detectors. The O2 data taking period will last until August 25th.

In the photo part of the VIRGO team which has made this great achievement possible is gathering in the detector control room to celebrate the end of a long commissioning phase and the beginning of a new era for gravitational-wave search, with for the first time three advanced detectors operating jointly.

The "Virgo joining O2" press release is available in English - French - Italian- Dutch - Polish - Spanish - Hungarian.

Posted: 01/08/2017

LIGO & VIRGO announce a third gravitational-wave detection!

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the VIRGO Collaboration are proud to jointly-announce the detection of a third gravitational-wave event: GW170104, yet another coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The observation, which was made on the 4^th of January 2017 by the two LIGO detectors, required months of careful analysis by the two collaborations to be confirmed.

In the photo, the newly-elected LIGO (David Shoemaker, left) and VIRGO (Jo van den Brand, right) spokespersons are celebrating the third detection GW170104 before joining the press briefing from the EGO Direction conference room.

The third detection paper is available here - Supplementary material is available here.

The third detection press release is available in English - French - Italian - Dutch - Polish - Spanish.

Posted: 01/06/2017

Second detection of gravitational waves

A second gravitational-wave detection was made on the 26^th of December 2015. Click here to view the papers.

The press release for the second detection is available here.

Posted: 15/06/2016