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Corey Gray Is Picking Up Cosmic Vibrations : Short Wave A pivotal week in Corey Gray's life began with a powwow in Alberta and culminated with a piece of history: the first-ever detection of gravitational waves from the collision of two neutron stars. Corey was on the graveyard shift at LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory in Hanford, Washington, when the historic signal came. Corey tells Short Wave Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber about the discovery, the "Gravitational Wave Grass Dance Special" that preceded it, and how he got his Blackfoot name.

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Corey Gray Is Picking Up Cosmic Vibrations

Corey Gray Is Picking Up Cosmic Vibrations

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Artist's illustration of two merging neutron stars. A. Simonnet/NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University hide caption

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A. Simonnet/NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University

Artist's illustration of two merging neutron stars.

A. Simonnet/NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University

A pivotal week in Corey Gray's life began with a powwow in Alberta and culminated with a piece of history: the first-ever detection of gravitational waves from the collision of two neutron stars. Corey was on the graveyard shift at LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in Hanford, Washington, when the historic signal came. Corey tells Short Wave Scientist-in- Residence Regina G. Barber about the discovery, the "Gravitational Wave Grass Dance Special" that preceded it, and how he got his Blackfoot name.

This episode was produced by Devan Schwartz, edited by Gabriel Spitzer, and fact-checked by Abē Levine.

LIGO Nov. 29, 2022

An earlier version of this podcast incorrectly stated what LIGO stands for. LIGO is short for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.