The EGO Observatory

The EGO Observatory

The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) is a French-Italian private Consortium founded by a joint agreement between the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). Both these research institutions equally finance the running of the Consortium since its foundation in December 2000. In 2009 EGO was pleased to welcome the Netherland Institute for Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) as Observer within its Council.

Today about 60 people work at the headquarters of EGO, that are located in Cascina, a small town about 20 kilometers from Pisa, in the Italian region of Tuscany.

The main purpose of EGO is to ensure the construction of Advanced Virgo and to guarantee its operations, maintenance, and upgrade, as well as the exploitation of scientific data. EGO is integrated to the Virgo Collaboration by providing a large and crucial support to the experiment and is fully responsible for the site of the Virgo interferometer.

Another key goal of EGO is to promote the studies on gravitational physics in Europe and be on the frontline of the gravitational wave research. To this purpose, EGO has also been coordinating projects that are focused on gravitational wave research and training, such as the GraWIToN program, supported by the European Commission.

EGO also coordinated the design study for the Einstein Telescope, an underground, 3rd-generation gravitational wave observatory that will follow the steps of Advanced Virgo and Advanced LIGO.

Furthermore, EGO welcomes visitors interested to know more about its activities and the exciting challenge of the gravitational waves searches with Virgo. For more information on how to visit us, please follow this link

For more information about EGO, click here

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