ESA ministers commit to biggest ever budget

The significant boost in funding for ESA’s world-class and inspirational science programme will allow the first gravitational wave detector in space, LISA, to fly alongside the black hole mission Athena.

ESA’s Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, has concluded in Seville, Spain, with the endorsement of the most ambitious plan to date for the future of ESA and the whole European space sector. Image: ESA

Dead Stars Found Whipping Around Each Other in Minutes

Two dead stars have been spotted whipping around each other every seven minutes.

The newfound dynamic duo, officially known as ZTF J1539+5027, is the second fastest pair of orbiting dead stars, called white dwarfs, found to date. Artwork Jorge Lugo

Discovering exoplanets with gravitational waves

Researchers suggest how LISA can detect exoplanets orbiting white dwarf binaries everywhere in our Milky Way and in the nearby Magellanic Clouds.

Artistic representation of gravitational waves produced by a compact binary white dwarf system with a jovian mass planetary companion. © Artwork by Simonluca Definis

ESA: A unique experiment to explore black holes

What happens when two supermassive black holes collide? Combining the observing power of two future ESA missions, Athena and LISA, would allow us to study these cosmic clashes and their mysterious aftermath for the first time.

The merger of supermassive black holes. © ESA

A high-precision test bench for LISA technology

AEI researchers develop novel precise laboratory setup to verify technology for LISA

AEI Hannover optical bench for test of LISA technology. © D. Penkert/MPI for Gravitational Physics

LISA Mission

Another milestone for LISA

Further investigations confirm LISA Pathfinder's success

The LISA Pathfinder scientific collaboration met in Trento to discuss the scientific results of the mission and their impact on LISA, together with key representatives of the space agencies and industry. © University of Trento

LISA Pathfinder – the quietest place in space

New LISA Pathfinder results exceed requirements for future gravitational-wave observatory LISA by far

LISA Pathfinder final mission results. © ESA

LISA mission passes review successfully and begins next stage of development

The future space-based gravitational wave observatory, LISA, has recently passed its Mission Definition Review (MDR) with flying colours.

A Satellite of the LISA-Mission. © AEI/MM/exozet; GW simulation: NASA/C. Henze

Good Night, LISA Pathfinder!

LISA Pathfinder has been switched off as planned on the evening of 18th of July, ending its successful mission which surpassed all expectations

LISA Pathfinder has demonstrated core elements of a spaceborne gravitational-wave observatory. © ESA–C.Carreau

Why we need a gravitational wave observatory in space

The science case for LISA

Merging Black Holes. Credit: T. Pyle/LIGO

The Gravitational Universe

Illuminating the dark universe with a new astronomy

Artist's impression of supermassive black hole. Credit: ESA/NASA, AVO project, Paolo Padovani.

LISA: A New Astronomy

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

Artist's impression of LISA satellite. Credit: AEI/MM/exozet
The LISA Mission Homepage

LISA & LISA Pathfinder

LISA will be a large-scale space mission designed to detect one of the most elusive phenomena in astronomy - gravitational waves. With LISA we will be able to observe the entire universe directly with gravitational waves, learning about the formation of structure and galaxies, stellar evolution, the early universe, and the structure and nature of spacetime itself.

The LISA Pathfinder Mission successfully paved the way for the LISA mission by demonstrating the key technologies for a large gravitational wave observatory in space. The results show that LISA Pathfinder is working to a precision better than required for LISA. The LISA Pathfinder mission was launched on 3rd December 2015 and ended in July 2017. 

The LISA Consortium

The LISA Consortium is committed to supporting the LISA mission. It includes all the main investigators involved in the highly successful LISA Pathfinder mission, a number of scientists who worked on the ground-based LIGO, Virgo, and GEO projects, and a number who worked on the Laser Ranging Interferometer on the GRACE Follow-On mission, thus making full use of the expertise accumulated so far. The LISA Consortium proposed and submitted the white paper The Gravitational Universe which was accepted for the ESA L3 slot.

If you are a scientist and wish to contribute to the LISA mission, use this scientist registration form.

A new frontier for exploring the physical universe

The path to LISA: a unique collaboration

The LISA Pathfinder mission, which demonstrated key technologies for the LISA gravitational-wave observatory was enabled by a unique collaboration.

Latest news and consortium activities

Date Title Summary
Jun 30, 2014
 LISA Pathfinder on the cover of top popular German astronomy magazine
Jun 29, 2014
 How do Gravitational Waves look like? David Radice wins Giulio Rampa Thesis Prize The 2014 Giulio Rampa Thesis Prize for outstanding research in Mathematical or Numerical...
Sep 11, 2018
 LISA Pathfinder Mission Accomplished Gathering of LISA Pathfinder collaboration, Trento, September 11-13, 2018The LISA...
Nov 13, 2011
 LISA Pathfinder takes major step in hunt for gravitational waves Sensors destined for ESA's LISA Pathfinder mission in 2014 have exceeded expectations in...
May 24, 2012
 Getting ready for next time: European gravitational wave community strengthens space collaboration The LISA mission was reported to have been unanimously ranked first by ESA´s scientific...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topicsort descending Image Title
Jul 14, 2020
 Conferences Compact Objects and Energetic Phenomena in the Multi-Messenger Era, July 14-16, 2020
Sep 09, 2020
 Conferences Advances in Computational Relativity, Sep 9 - Dec 11, 2020
Mar 04, 2020
 Conferences Bayesian Deep Learning for Cosmology and Gravitational waves, March 4-6 2020, Paris
Mar 04, 2020
 Conferences LISA Meeting March 4th to 6th 2020, New York
Mar 13, 2020
 Conferences 9th Gulf Coast Gravity Meeting
Apr 07, 2020
 Conferences Second European Physical Society Conference on Gravitation
Conferences Hyperspace@AEI
Jun 22, 2020
 Conferences IAU Symposium 363 in L’Aquila, Italy, June 22nd-26th, 2020
Feb 23, 2020
 Conferences Karpacz 2020 Winter School in Theoretical Physics, February 23- 29, 2020, Karpacz, Poland
Jul 14, 2020
 Conferences Compact Objects and Energetic Phenomena in the Multi-Messenger Era, Saint Paul, MN July 14-16, 2020
Jul 19, 2020
 Conferences LISA Symposium 2020, Glasgow
Dec 16, 2019
 Positions Postdoctoral scholar positions at the University of Florida
Sep 13, 2019
 Positions PhD or Masters by Research positions – University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Dec 19, 2019
 Positions PhD position in Theoretical Astrophysics at University of Potsdam, Germany
Jan 03, 2020
 Positions Postdoc Position in Cosmology, Particle, Astroparticle and Gravitational Physics at IIP Natal (Brazil)

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