LIVINGSTON PARISH, La. (WAFB) - A decade ago, researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected ripples in the fabric of the universe, confirming the existence of gravitational waves caused by the collision of two black holes billions of light-years away.

Since that discovery on Sept. 14, 2015, LIGO has identified hundreds of similar cosmic events, but proposed federal budget cuts now threaten the future of this research.

Joseph Giaime, head researcher at LIGO Livingston, explained the observatory’s process:

“And so we take light from a laser, split it in two, half of the light bounces back and forth between mirrors on the end of this arm and the other half does the same in the other arm, and then that light gets sent back to a beam splitter and gets

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