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.
Latest news and consortium activities
Date |
Title |
Summary |
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Feb 05, 2018 |
LISA Pathfinder – the quietest place in space |
New LISA Pathfinder results exceed requirements for future gravitational-wave observatory... |
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Oct 16, 2017 |
GW170817 - The first observation of gravitational-waves from a binary neutron star inspiral |
In a milestone for multimessenger astronomy, scientists have directly detected... |
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Oct 03, 2017 |
Nobel Prize 2017 in Physics for Gravitational Waves |
Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration receive... |
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Apr 04, 2017 |
The LISA Consortium mourns Pierre Binetruy |
Pierre was one of the greatest scientists in the LISA community,
an overwhelming driving... |
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Dec 13, 2016 |
LISA Pathfinder's pioneering mission continues: Mission gets a six month extension |
On 7 December, LISA Pathfinder started the extended phase of its mission, an additional... |
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Conferences, publications and positions
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Hyperspace@AEI |
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May 04, 2018 |
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Annual ESO Studentship Programme, Europe and Chile |
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Dec 13, 2019 |
Positions |
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CNRS researcher permanent position in Toulouse, France |
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Oct 25, 2005 |
Papers |
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Expected coalescence rates of NS-NS binaries for laser beam interferometers |
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Oct 25, 2019 |
Positions |
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Postdoctoral Positions in the CGCA at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee |
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Apr 29, 2014 |
Papers |
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Strong Binary Pulsar Constraints on Lorentz Violation in Gravity |
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Nov 22, 2019 |
Positions |
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Nikhef Postdoc in GW and Distributed Computing |
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Papers |
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LISA Brown Bag & GW Notes |
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Feb 15, 2019 |
Positions |
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New Gravitational Wave Physics MSc at Cardiff University |
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Jul 14, 2020 |
Conferences |
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Compact Objects and Energetic Phenomena in the Multi-Messenger Era, Saint Paul, MN July 14-16, 2020 |
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Mar 07, 2011 |
Papers |
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A source-free integration method for black hole perturbations and self-force computation: Radial fall |
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Oct 30, 2019 |
Positions |
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Two postdoc postiions in the context of the ANR funded project: “Opening new windows on the early universe with multi-messenger astronomy” |
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Sep 26, 2011 |
Papers |
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Gravitational Radiation in Horava Gravity |
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Mar 13, 2020 |
Conferences |
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9th Gulf Coast Gravity Meeting |
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Apr 28, 2014 |
Papers |
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Space-borne Gravitational Wave Observatories |
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