Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · 4d

Meet Ulyana Dupletsa, postdoc at HEPHY in Vienna 🌍
She developed key tools for ET performance studies and now helps coordinate science case analyses.
💬 “It’s inspiring to be part of a community shaping the future of gravitational-wave astronomy.”
#ET_young #ResearchInfrastructures #ET_women

A young woman with long brown hair sits at an outdoor café table, smiling softly at the camera.

A young woman in a gray sweater and jeans stands smiling on a platform with metal railings, in front of long arms of a scientific observatory building extending into the distance under a bright blue sky with scattered clouds.

2 4

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · 11d

🚀 Big weeks for the #EinsteinTelescope community:
🔹 Cosmic Explorer – ET Beamtube Workshop (LIGO Hanford, US)
🔹 #CoMET lab launch (Rovigo, IT)
🔹 Orosei workshop on Sos Enattos site
🔹 ET EMR work on sustainability

Tech, collaboration & future-ready! ✨

A large tunnel boring machine seen head-on inside a circular underground tunnel, with workers in helmets standing nearby.

Officials wearing white safety helmets cutting a ceremonial ribbon at the inauguration of the CoMET laboratory, with a presentation screen in the background.

A group of workshop participants posing in front of the LIGO Exploration Center building under clear skies.

4

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · 19d

#EuropeanResearchersNight lit up cities across Europe this past weekend 26th September 🌍✨
The Einstein Telescope and gravitational waves took center stage in many presentations and activities — because they’re simply that exciting! 🚀🔭
Some highlights👇

2

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · 26d

Images: Brice Maximilien; Traczyk Piotr; CERN.

1

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · 26d

#ET_young #ET_team
Meet Carlo Scarcia: since 2021 he’s been designing the ET beam pipe vacuum system, cutting costs with smarter materials & methods. Now leading vacuum tests at the ET pilot sector at @cern.bsky.social.
@rwth.bsky.social

Engineers at CERN install a large cylindrical stainless-steel beam pipe section, suspended by a crane, as part of the Einstein Telescope pilot sector vacuum system.

Researcher at CERN stands next to a shiny cylindrical beam pipe prototype, looking through its interior, which shows a series of concentric ridges.

1 5

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Sep 18

ETO’s 3rd General Meeting took place in Isola d’Elba 🇮🇹 — a key moment to reflect on progress, strengthen collaborations & set the course toward the #EinsteinTelescope. ETO is the organisation coordinating the design, planning & implementation of this next-gen observatory. #ETO2025

Group photo of participants at the ETO General Meeting in Isola d’Elba, Italy, September 2025. Around 30 people stand outdoors by a pool with palm trees and the sea in the background, wearing conference badges and blue sunglasses.

3

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Sep 12

🌌 Ten years ago today, gravitational waves were detected for the first time. Now, the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA network is celebrating the anniversary with its clearest detection yet: GW250114, a black hole merger that confirmed Hawking’s Black Hole Area Theorem.
#GW10Years

Image: LIGO/J. Tissino (GSSI)/R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)
This plot shows gravitational-wave signals recorded by the LIGO Hanford detector almost ten years apart. The top shows data from LIGO's first-ever detection of gravitational waves, an event called GW150914, captured in 2015. The bottom shows the signal known as GW250114, captured in 2025. Both events involve colliding black holes about 1.3 billion light-years away with masses between 30 to 40 times that of our Sun. The purple line shows the data, which are a combination of the signal plus background detector noise. The noise comes from a variety of sources, including seismic motions that jiggle giant mirrors inside LIGO. The green line shows the best-fit prediction from general relativity for each signal. The much lower noise seen today is thanks to cutting-edge improvements made to the LIGO detectors that hush unwanted noise.

1 8

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Sep 2

Image: This plot compares the numbers and masses of black holes and neutron stars discovered by the LVK through Jan 2024, in just over eight years since the first detection, with those discovered by electromagnetic (EM) means over the last ~60 years.

2

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Sep 2

Image: LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA / Aaron Geller / Northwestern

2

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Sep 2

The LVK collaborations released GWTC-4.0, adding 128 new #gravitationalwave events from O4a, including the most massive black hole merger yet. Explore the data and interactive plots here: media.ligo.northwestern.edu/gallery/mass...

Colorful chart of black hole and neutron star masses detected by LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA, showing hundreds of cosmic collisions.

1 4

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Aug 28

With deep sadness, we mourn the passing of Nobel laureate Rainer Weiss, whose vision shaped gravitational wave science and inspired generations. His recent contributions to the ET will continue to guide us. Our condolences to his family, friends, and community.
Photo credits: MIT/Bryce Vickmark

Portrait of Rainer Weiss, an elderly man with glasses, short white hair, and a blue sweater, looking calmly at the camera against a softly blurred background.

1 1 7

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Aug 22

🚀 A new baseline design for the Einstein Telescope is here!
✅ Underground volume reduced by 25%
✅ Flexibility kept
✅ Science case intact
With site liaisons from Sardinia & Euregio Meuse-Rhine on board, it’s a major step forward.
👉 Read more on the ET page: lnkd.in/d9HzPmqA

Visualisations of the new Einstein Telescope baseline design. Left: triangular layout; right: L-shaped 2L layout. The coloured blocks represent underground caverns and technical infrastructure, showing reduced volume and optimised geometry.

7

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Aug 15

🌌 From classrooms to new science spaces – the Einstein Telescope community is buzzing! 🚀 25 teachers join #MaGIC in Maastricht, while Sardinia opens a new Project Unit dedicated to ET. ✨
Read more:
shorturl.at/RLpTQ
shorturl.at/d3Soa
Images: ET EMR, ET Italy

A man giving a presentation using a “Pepper’s ghost” effect, appearing as a holographic figure. Behind him are two large circular projections: one showing handwritten notes and an artistic image of a galaxy, the other a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton.
(Einstein Telescope EMR)

Entrance to the Rampa Tupedduli tunnel at the Sos Enattos former mine in Sardinia, Italy. The tunnel has a red metal gate, a small yellow door, and is set into a rocky hillside with green vegetation under a partly cloudy sky.

2

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Aug 6

#ET_young Meet Marc Andrés Carcasona, PhD — postdoc at IFAE, designing baffles for the Einstein Telescope to block unwanted light and protect its sensitivity. From MIT to Caltech, science to 🎹📚✈️🥾 — Marc blends research, teaching & diverse passions.

Marc Andrés Carcasona
Portrait of a man wearing a dark blazer over a white shirt. He is outdoors on a sunny day, with blurred steps, grass, and trees in the background.

A baffle built at IFAE for Virgo to monitor scattered light. Insights from this work will guide the design of ET’s baffles. Image from M. Andrés-Carcasona et al., Phys. Rev. D 107 (2023) 6, 062001.

1 4

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 30

🚀 The ET Blue Book passed 100 citations on INSPIRE - just 4 months after being posted on the arXiv!
~550 pages, 300+ contributors, and already a pillar for #GravitationalWaves science.
Thanks to all building on this shared vision!
#ET_science #ETPP
@inspirehep.net

1 5

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 25

ET-PP Annual Meeting in Barcelona 🇪🇺
22-24 July ET-PP consortium met to review progress & plan the next steps for building the foundations of the Einstein Telescope. 30 institutions, 11 countries, one vision for Europe’s #gravitationalwave future!
#ETPP #InfraDev #HorizonEurope

A group photo of ET-PP Annual Meeting participants taken on the rooftop terrace under a bright blue sky. The attendees, wearing conference badges, are standing and smiling against a backdrop of city buildings.

A large group of attendees standing together on an outdoor terrace under a sunny sky during the ET-PP Annual Meeting in Barcelona. Most participants are wearing blue lanyards and name badges, and the background shows modern rooftop structures.

A group of people posing indoors for a group photo during the ET-PP Annual Meeting. They are wearing blue lanyards with name badges, and a video call screen in the background shows additional participants joining remotely.

A man standing at a podium inside an auditorium, delivering a presentation during the ET-PP Annual Meeting at the Barcelona School of Management. A slide projected behind him shows the event title “ET-PP annual meeting 22nd July 2024” and a photo of a building.

4 8

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 21

@uofglasgow.bsky.social

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 21

✨ ET at #Amaldi16 & #GR24!
From 14 to 18 July at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, experts in gravity, astrophysics & cosmology gathered to share ideas on gravitational waves & next-gen detectors. Proud to be part of this global collaboration! 🌍
#EinsteinTelescope

Exterior view of the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow, featuring the iconic curved architecture of the Armadillo building and the SSE Hydro arena under a blue sky with scattered clouds.

1 1 4

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 14

🕳️ Our colleagues at LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA announced detection of the most massive #blackhole merger ever seen!
Event GW231123, observed on Nov 23, 2023, came from black holes of ~103 & 137 solar masses - forming one over 225 times the Sun’s mass☀️
#GravitationalWaves #GW231123

Infographic titled "Meet GW231123: a gravitational-wave signal from the most massive binary black hole observed to date". It highlights the November 23, 2023 detection by LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA of two merging black holes—103 and 137 times the mass of the Sun—producing a final black hole over 225 solar masses. The event was observed by LIGO Hanford and Livingston for 0.1 seconds. A visual chart shows the masses in comparison to typical black hole ranges, noting the "upper mass gap." An inset suggests a "hierarchical origin story"—the merging black holes may have formed from previous mergers. The infographic emphasises the black holes' rapid spins (80–90% of the maximum theoretical spin rate) and shows their detection from a distance of 2–13 billion light-years. A world map marks the locations of LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA detectors. Credit: Simona J. Miller / Caltech

2 8

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 10

@wissenschaftsrat.de

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 10

🌍 The ET preparatory phase has been shortlisted among 🇩🇪 Germany’s top 9 large-scale research infrastructures - a major recognition of its global relevance & scientific ambition!
📢 Full statement: shorturl.at/7Jkzw
#ETproject #Science #ResearchInfrastructures

Map of Germany highlighting the locations of the nine large-scale research infrastructure projects selected in the national prioritisation process (Forschungsinfrastruktur – FIS). Each project is marked with a labeled blue circle (letters C, D, E, H, I, L, P, R, S) corresponding to its acronym and institution. The Einstein Telescope (labelled "E") is included and linked to RWTH Aachen, Universität Münster, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and Technische Universität Dresden. The map was published by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

1 4 6

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jul 4

🌀 Last week, ET made headlines in science, diplomacy&innovation.
🔹 At #Expo2025 Osaka, Sardinia’s bid to host ET shined at the Italy Pavilion.
🔹 In the EMR region, the first ET Industry Webinar kicked off with 80+ companies onboard and 400+ lining up.
📡 Follow us for more.
#ET_news

A speaker holds a microphone while seated during a panel discussion at the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka. A banner behind him promotes Sardinia as a candidate site for the Einstein Telescope. A screen beside the speaker displays a graph of gravitational-wave observations. Audience members are visible in the foreground.
Photo: Einstein Telescope IT

Four people sit and stand around a modern studio table with ambient pink-orange lighting. A screen on the front of the desk displays a scenic view of a green valley. The setting is part of the first Einstein Telescope Industry Webinar, with a relaxed but professional atmosphere.
Photo: Einstein Telescope EMR

1 3

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jun 26

🎓 Meet Dr. Aleksandra Mitchell — sensor wizard, DJ, and science style icon 👗
From U. of Birmingham to Nikhef to Stanford, she’s building ultra-sensitive tech for the #EinsteinTelescope.
Also: she voiced SPACETIME, a Cannes-awarded film 🎬
#ET_young #WomenInSTEM #GravitationalWaves

A person smiling in a pale pink strapless dress with a white fur shawl, holding a diploma tube from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam while seated outdoors in a city square.

A person standing behind a podium at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, wearing a bright pink blazer and white blouse, ready to present scientific work.

A person in a cleanroom wearing a full protective lab suit and face mask, leaning beside a high-precision experimental setup with optical and electronic components.

A person DJing under colourful stage lighting, wearing a sparkly pink strapless dress and pearl necklace, smiling while adjusting headphones behind a Pioneer DJ booth.

8

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jun 19

🔭 Europe is advancing the Einstein Telescope!
🇮🇹 Italy opens GALILEO lab for noise reduction.
🇧🇪🇳🇱 EMR region studies green energy for ET.
🇧🇪 Wallonia starts new deep drilling in Julémont.
🇮🇹 Sardinia builds ET-industry links with 78 companies.
#ET_news

A ribbon-cutting ceremony at the GALILEO laboratory. A group of people in safety helmets stand in an underground corridor. One man, smiling, cuts a red ribbon in front of a bright green door marked L2060. Others, including scientists and officials, look on with interest.

Drilling site in a rural landscape in Sint Pietersvoeren, 2024. The setup includes a tall drilling rig, orange and white machinery containers, and a metal staircase structure. In the background, green fields, scattered houses, and a dense forest stretch across the horizon under a cloudy sky.

2 5

Einstein Telescope @einsteintelescope.bsky.social · Jun 12

Meet Andrea Moscatello, PhD student at University of Padova & INFN Padova, working on dust-related noise in the Einstein Telescope.
✨ “Gravitational waves once sounded like sci-fi. Now I work with them.”
📸 Virgo clean room • Padova lab • Portrait
#ET_young

Portrait of a person in a yellow polo shirt, facing the camera against a neutral background.

Person wearing protective glasses and a face mask, working in a lab with optical equipment and electronic instruments in the background.

Person in cleanroom gear standing next to a large optical test mass inside the Virgo clean room. Wearing a full protective suit, face mask, and glasses.

1 5