Image: Shutterstock
Here is a list of the biggest science facilities at the forefront of cutting-edge research about the very fabric of reality and the universe.
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Washington and Louisiana, USA
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) consists of two identical facilities, each with 4-km-long vacuum tubes that detect gravitational waves.
Image: ligo.caltech.edu
Antarctica
This network of optical sensors buried 2.5 km into Antarctic ice studies neutrinos, subatomic particles that travel across the universe, and their interaction with ice.
Image: European Space Agency
Arecibo, Puerto Rico
The 305-metre telescope tunes into pulsars, galaxies, etc. It was also used for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
Image: Shutterstock
Hida, Japan
This 1,000 metre-deep underground research facility is used to detect high-energy neutrinos, create proton decay and observe supernovae in the universe, among others.
Image: sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp
New Mexico, USA
It is a multi-purpose, powerful telescope system used to observe gamma-ray bursts, radio-emitting stars, pulsars, black holes, planets, radio galaxies, etc.
Image: Shutterstock
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
The LHC is a circular 27-km tunnel in which 100 billion protons are fired at each other, resulting in 50-60 collisions on average, repeated over 30 million times per second.
Image: Shutterstock
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