What's true for optical astronomy is also true for gravitational wave astronomy: The more observatories you have, the better your view of the sky. This is why the list of active gravitational wave observatories is growing. But so far they are all in the Northern Hemisphere. As a recent article on the arXiv preprint server points out, that means we are missing out on a good number of gravitational events.
. This is particularly true given that the dense central region of our galaxy is in the southern sky.
As a basic case, the authors consider adding a LIGO-like observatory in Australia. Currently, there are two LIGO detectors in the United States and the Virgo detector in Italy. Together they detect around three events a year, though that number is rising as techniques improve. The addition of an Australian detector would double that count to more than six events.
In this case, adding an Australian detector would not significantly increase the number of observed events, raising the number from an estimated 40 a year to 44 a year. But as you can imagine, these new observatories will be so cutting edge that downtimes will be inevitable. In this case, an Australian observatory would give us a significant edge. With only Einstein and Cosmic Explorer, if one goes down for maintenance, the detection rate drops to a few a year.
As we get better at gravitational wave astronomy, there will eventually be detectors all over the world, and even in space. Gravitational wave astronomy will come to the global south. But as this study shows, the time for that is sooner, not later.James W. Gardner et al, Multi-messenger astronomy with a Southern-Hemisphere gravitational-wave observatory,
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