VIRGO joins LIGO for the “Observation Run 2” (O2) data-taking period

Today, Tuesday August 1st 2017 at 11 CEST, the VIRGO detector based in Europe has officially joined “Observation Run 2” (O2) and is now taking data alongside the American-based twin LIGO detectors. This major step forward for the VIRGO Collaboration is the outcome of a multi-year upgrade program, whose primary goal was to significantly improve the detector performance in terms of sensitivity.

Press release .