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On October 28, 2020 CIERA’s Shane Larson presented this public lecture titled A Storm of Stars: A Living History of the Milky Way in a virtual Zoom webinar format to an audience of nearly 450 viewers. Larson discussed how we came to understand the Milky Way, our home galaxy, and how our ideas about the

The Universe is vast beyond anything humans can easily comprehend, and it is easy to become overwhelmed by the immensity, disheartened by how insignificant we seem. But in the vastness there is a glimmer of truth that we should hold onto and use to guide us: in all the vastness we are, so far as

The length of a human life barely registers on the scale of cosmic time. In spite of our relatively tiny size and our limited time here on Earth, a single generation of humans can take giant leaps forward in our understanding of the Universe. Join us to find out how dramatically our story of the

CIERA Associate Director and Northwestern LIGO group member Shane Larson says that inspiration and collaboration, two huge parts of scientific discoveries, can help us solve society’s problems.

An international research collaboration, including four Northwestern University astronomers, is the first to detect the spectacular collision of two neutron stars in a nearby galaxy using both gravitational waves and light.

CIERA Director Vicky Kalogera and Associate Director Shane Larson talk about the history of gamma ray bursts, and the theory that short gamma ray bursts are caused by collisions of neutron starts. Now, that puzzle is solved!

Northwestern University astronomers talk about gravitational waves — what they are, how to understand them, and why they are important to studying the Universe.

CIERA Associate Director and Northwestern LIGO group member Shane Larson describes how different the 2017 Neutron Star Merger (GW170817) signal is from previous signals.

CIERA Associate Director and Northwestern LIGO group member Shane Larson describes how the masses of objects in our Universe is very important to astronomers’ understanding of events like GW170817.

Following the October 16, 2017 announcement of the first-ever observation of a binary neutron star inspiral and merger, Northwestern’s astronomy research center, CIERA, held a discussion with the Northwestern scientists behind the discovery. View the lecture by Shane Larson to understand the science behind this amazing astronomical event!

Following the October 16, 2017 announcement of the first-ever observation of a binary neutron star inspiral and merger, Northwestern’s astronomy research center, CIERA, held a discussion with the Northwestern scientists behind the discovery. View the recording of this event in full, and join Professors Vicky Kalogera, Shane Larson, Raffaella Margutti and Wen-fai Fong as they

After the spectacular collision of two neutron stars, which produced gravitational waves that were detected here on Earth, astronomers at Northwestern University describe how telescopes around the world looked for light.

An international research collaboration, including four Northwestern University astronomers, is the first to detect the spectacular collision of two neutron stars in a nearby galaxy using both gravitational waves and light.

What is a neutron star? What is it like when two neutron stars collide? Northwestern University astronomers describe the GW170817 merger of these massive objects in our Universe.