LIGO - GS questions based on daily current affairs

ANSWER: 1, 3

Explanation:

• The LIGO-India project will be jointly coordinated and executed by three premier Indian lead institutions viz., the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar and the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore.
• Some of the Universities in the country will also participate in the project.
• The LIGO-India project will establish a state-of-the-art gravitational wave observatory on the Indian soil in collaboration with the LIGO Laboratory in the U.S. run by Caltech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• The project will bring unprecedented opportunities for our scientists and engineers to dig deeper into the realm of gravitational wave and take global leadership in this new astronomical frontier.
• LIGO-India will also bring considerable opportunities in cutting edge technology for the Indian industry which will be engaged in the construction of eight kilometre long beam tube at ultra-high vacuum on a levelled terrain.

ANSWER: Team detecting gravitational waves

Explanation:

• The scientists and engineers of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, who detected gravitational waves and reported their discovery in February, have been awarded a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
• The team also includes Indian scientists and researchers.
• The three founders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) are Rainer Weiss, emeritus professor of physics at MIT; Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus; and Ronald Drever, emeritus professor of physics at Caltech.