Animated Spectrogram

This movie shows the LIGO and VIRGO observations of the gravitational wave, known as GW170817, and the first detection produced by colliding neutron stars. In the LIGO Hanford, Washington, and LIGO Livingston, Louisiana, panels, GW170817 appears as a blue-green and yellow curve. This "chirp" signal turns sharply upward near the time of 0 seconds, which is 5:41:04 a.m. PDT on Aug. 17, 2017. The movie converts a theoretical model of the observed wave into sound at the same frequencies as the model wave's.