62 Scientific American, November 2019
IN THE PIPELINE
Cocooned in stainless steel and surrounded by water-
logged rock, one of two three-kilometer-long vacuum
chambers sprawls down a damp, dripping tunnel bored
underneath Mount Ikenoyama in Japan. An intricate
system of lasers and mirrors inside the chambers is
designed to tune in to gravitational waves moving
through our planet from across the cosmos.© 2019 Scientific American © 2019 Scientific American