The LIGO observatory is finally back, now with double the sensitivity

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The Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) started a new 20-month observation run yesterday, May 24, bringing to an end a three-year hiatus for the project, a press statement reveals.

LIGO has been offline in order to allow for some impressive upgrades to the system, including a "quantum squeezing" upgrade that reduces detector noise to improve its gravitational wave sensing capacity.

Astronomers expect this upgrade to double the sensitivity of LIGO, allowing the system to better detect black hole mergers and other cataclysmic events. It may even be able to detect types of mergers that have never been seen before.