LIGO is such an impressive accomplishment.
The Wiki page on the gravitational wave detection that this article is about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW170817
An estimate of the gold and platinum created by the merger:
The neutron star merger event is thought to result in a kilonova, characterized by a short gamma ray burst followed by a longer optical “afterglow” powered by the radioactive decay of heavy r-process nuclei. Kilonovae are candidates for the production of half the chemical elements heavier than iron in the Universe. A total of 16,000 times the mass of the Earth in heavy elements is believed to have formed, including approximately ten Earth masses just of the two elements gold and platinum.
The amount of the relativistic "shortening" of the apparatus was reportedly less than the width of a proton! In other words, if the arm of the apparatus was originally as long as the distance from earth to the nearest star, outside the sun, the shortening would be about the width of a human hair. It is supposedly of that same ratio.
The distance to the nearest star outside the sun is 4.3 light years! That's roughly 25 TRILLION MILES, vs the width of a human hair!! Frankly, I don't believe it.