Gravitational wave detectors affected by DST
An astronomy paper published in January ties daylight saving time to LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which detects cosmic gravitational waves. Here's a citation: Essick R. Can LIGO Detect Daylight Saving Time? ApJ. 2026;997:76. <https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae2255>. The answer to the paper's title is "yes". Gravitational wave detectors, though designed to detect black holes merging billions of light years from here, can also distinguish Earth day from Earth night, weekends from weekdays, and even daylight saving from standard time. This is because their human operators and neighbors generate noise that significantly affects the detectors' sensitivity, and the noise itself can be analyzed to detect human-caused patterns like DST. This has consequences for the conclusions that can be drawn from LIGO surveys. For a readable summary of Essick's results, see: Tomaswick A. Gravitational wave detectors affected by daylight savings time. Universe Today. 2025-09-25. <https://phys.org/news/2025-09-gravitational-detectors-affected-daylight.html>.
Paul Eggert via tz <tz@iana.org> writes:
Essick R. Can LIGO Detect Daylight Saving Time? ApJ. 2026;997:76. <https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae2255>.
The answer to the paper's title is "yes".
Ian Betteridge will be furious, I'm sure. DES -- Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des@des.no
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Dag-Erling Smørgrav -
Paul Eggert