LIGO Looking Forward

The recipients of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics share an insider's look into the future of the world's largest gravitational wave detectors. From peering inside a supernova to capturing signals from the universe's first moment, gravitational waves have the potential to reveal the most powerful events in the cosmos. In 2017, Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for leading a successful effort to observe gravitational waves using NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). In 2015, the LIGO team, involving more than 1,000 researchers, detected ripples in the fabric of space-time as they emanated from a pair of colliding black holes, transforming astrophysics and confirming theories set forth by Albert Einstein a century before. Weiss, Barish and Thorne helped lead the conception, construction and management of LIGO, an effort that spanned four decades and an NSF investment of more than $1 billion. In this interview with NSF's Josh Chamot, the three pioneers reveal what the future holds for LIGO, and the lingering questions about the universe that the observatory may one day answer.