by Flo Yuen (CASS)

Last month, physicists at LIGO made waves with the announcement that elusive gravitational waves – ripples in space time caused by a violent cosmic event taking place in the distant Universe – had finally been observed 100 years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence. The Australian radio telescopes involved in the EM follow-up observations were ASKAP and the MWA, located at CSIRO’s MRO in Western Australia. Both instruments offer a wide field of view, high sensitivity and quick response times, complemented by high-speed supercomputing capabilities, making them valuable additions to the LIGO/Virgo collaboration. For more information see this page .

Image credits: ASKAP (Alex Cherney), MWA (Pete Wheeler).