The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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One of LISA's ground-based counterparts: the LIGO (Light Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory) observatory in Hanford, Washington, USA, with twin lasers fired along an L-shaped vacuum tunnel, each arm 4km long. It operates in conjunction with a second LIGO observatory 3000 km away in Livingston, Louisiana.
Earth’s seismic noise disturbs these detectors over seconds-long timescales, a fact that limits them to looking for higher-frequency gravitational waves from smaller astronomical objects, such as neutron stars and small black holes.
However, deep space opens a new window to the low frequency gravitational wave spectrum with which LISA will observe, among other phenomena, the most powerful events in the universe – the collision and merger of super-massive black holes.