pictures from LIGO

[nibot]

LIGO-Hanford Control Room

Beamline electronics cabinets (VME crates)

Testing circuit boards

My rental car on some Hanford road

Arrival back in Rochester (the plane didn't make it all the way to the gate, due to the snow -- or something)

Comments

[nibot.livejournal.com]

actually, "exotic gamma rays" is somewhat correct. "gamma rays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_rays)" are just photons — really high energy (= high frequency = short wavelength) photons. The danger with laser light is that the intensity of light (the number of photons) is very high, whereas with gamma rays the danger is because each photon (there will probably be fewer of them) has high energy.