This is not a typical observatory. It's like a hands on museum. We had a good time, we were there about an hour. They had a STEM activity for the kids, and the instructions are pretty good to do the different stations. Very clean, and it was great it was free! read more

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A colleague of mine wanted to go here so we did a short road trip from seattle to here. The staff is super nice. We had an appointment for the observatory tour at 11:45 am and they were on time. They first explained about what they do at the observatory. And they took us to some few important spots in the campus. The person who was taking us on tour, answered all questions. We had a great experience. If you are interested in knowing more about the observatory, then definitely it's worth the visit!! read more

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The twin beauty of big science is that it is big and that it encircles many people in its work. In school I worked in big physics research. Not my project, but a department project was a gravity wave detector in our basement. As is the nature of science research, and especially basic science research, that project failed. The detector was too small. LIGO is big, but humble. To detect gravity waves LIGO has two each two and a half mile vacuum tubes, lasers within. The lasers are extended in length about 300x by mirrors. As gravity waves distort the space time continuum, LIGO detects it. LIGO Hanford is in communication with its copy in Louisiana every sixteen seconds to cancel out noise. It has to cancel out the tides. It does. Our tour and talk was led by a PhD from Caltech who built LIGO. He graciously answered questions asked by curious children to fellow PhDs. The instrument itself is sealed and much of it is in stainless steel high vacuum containment. So you cannot see the instrument, and you would need clean room garb to do so anyway. The tour does visit the control room with a myriad of displays. The grounds, on the Hanford Reservation, are high desert sagebrush. But the area immediately around the visitor center and central building have surreal modernist landscaping. Big physics is a group process of scientists from around the world working together in peace. The most probing questioner in our tour group was a young punk-mod in appearance woman. More people in the world working together is much better than working in opposition. They have tour times Saturdays - the website has the details. This is an obscure out of the way physics experiment. It would be great for middle-school on up individuals interested in science. It is also a great place to learn about gravity and its place in the Standard Model. read more

What is LIGO, you ask. LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory What do they do there & what is it that they are trying to prove?? Simple, they are trying to measure gravitational waves or ripples in the fabric of spacetime. First predicted by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves are produced by exotic events involving black holes, neutron stars and objects perhaps not yet discovered. Uh, huh. Ask me to explain it in English... and I'll stumble through, so I won't even attempt it. It does makes sense to me though and will to you if you ever do a tour that is offered twice per month!! OR I have it on good authority that people can also call up if they want a personalized tour, and usually they can make something happen. When driving to the site you feel as if you are driving to the middle of nowhere & there is not going to be anything there when you arrive. This is all necessary though, to keep the noise from traffic & everyday life in a city from affecting their equipment and ability to measure the gravitational waves. What is their equipment?? Well, to put it briefly. It consists of two tubes 4 km long that they beam a laser through, the laser hits a mirror and comes back. If there are no gravitational waves being caused, then the waves of the laser (going & coming) will cancel each other out. If there is a gravitational wave being caused there is going to be a difference between the two (going & coming) that can be measured, showing a gravitational wave. Think that is the simple way of putting it. Now that we've all gotten our physics lesson. If you are into this sort of stuff, I would HIGHLY suggest going on a tour. Seriously, they are thinking that it possibly could prove the Big Bang Theory one of these days. The only negative is that it is soo close to Hanford, the nuclear site. It is within eye sight. Definitely explains why I was glowing all the way home & I got such weird looks when walking into places. read more

Right now is an excellent time to go on a tour of LIGO. They are currently doing upgrades to the array, so it's not currently operating. What that meant for the tour we went on is that we got to go into the control room AND into the interferometer. It was awesome. read more

LIGO Hanford Observatory - Observatories Near Me - Richland, Washington

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Wow. What an awesome afternoon! Our family was in the Tri-Cities for our daughter's soccer game and I wanted to explore the area to make the long drive from Seattle worth it. The tour is well worth the long drive. Absolutely great. We scheduled a private tour with three other soccer families, with kids ranging from 9th grade to pre-K. I'd say the tour was lost on the littles, but the middle schoolers, high schoolers and parents were blown away. Amber, our tour guide, was a high school science teacher and had us spellbound from the start. She was interesting, very well informed, funny, and super open to questions, even lots of questions. I was a history major in college and wanted to poke my eyes out in physics class in high school, and I was fascinated by the physics as explained on this tour. It was very cool to show the kids what they could work on if they keep studying math and science, what they could be a part of. I wouldn't go to the facility without a tour, the little exhibit in the public area won't make a lot of sense. Possibly a life-changing experience for the kids, certainly a highlight of the year. Highly recommend. read more