It’s an observatory so big that it can’t be built on Earth….
It’s been 11 years since we detected the very first gravitational wave signal caused by two black holes merging 1.4 billion light years away, that detectors here on Earth managed to pick up on 14th September 2015. Since then we’ve detected almost 400 gravitational wave signals from merging black holes somewhere out there in the Universe.
Now the European Space Agency are currently building LISA, the next generation of gravitational wave detectors. It’s an observatory so big that it can’t be built on Earth.
LISA will have 3 satellite detectors arranged in a triangle each separated by 2.5 million km – that’s 6.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. It’ll use lasers fired along that triangle to detect gravitational waves, ripples through space itself caused by two SUPERMASSIVE black holes merging together.
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com
Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst
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👩🏽💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don’t know. If you’ve ever wondered about something in space and couldn’t find an answer online – you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
http://drbecky.uk.com
Credit to : Dr. Becky
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