After concluding that European Space Agency (ESA), The The LISA mission It is scheduled to launch in 2035. It is currently under construction. This will be the first scientific attempt Detecting and Probing Gravitational Waves from Space. Scientific contributions in Spain are led by the Institute of Space Sciences and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia.
The ESA Through this step, the formal “Adoption“, the mission's concept and technology have advanced enough to give the green light to build instruments and spacecraft. The mission will begin in January 2025 once a European industrial contractor is selected.
What is Lisa?
It's not just a spaceship, it's a constellation of three. These follow the Earth's orbit around the Sun, creating a more accurate equilateral triangle in space. Each side of the triangle is 2.5 million kilometers long (six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon) and Ships exchange laser beams At this distance. The launch of three spacecraft is planned for 2035 Ariane 6 rocket.
Sound for the movie Universe
A century ago, Einstein He made revolutionary predictions that when massive objects accelerate, they shake The fabric of spacetime, creating small waves called gravitational waves. Thanks to modern technological advances, these elusive signals can now be detected.
LISA will detect waves in space-time throughout the universe Collision of supermassive black holes In the centers of galaxies. This will allow the team to trace the origin of these objects, their growth to millions of times that of the Sun, and determine the role they play in the evolution of galaxies.
“LISA is an unprecedented endeavor. Ground-based instruments can detect gravitational waves using laser beams tens of thousands of kilometers away. Objects the size of stars, such as supernova explosions or mergers of high-density stars and stellar-mass black holes. “We need to go into space to expand the boundaries of gravity studies,” he explains Nora LutzendorfLead scientist of the LISA project.
In our galaxy, LISA will detect the merging of many compact objects, such as white dwarfs or neutron stars, giving us a unique view of the final stages of the evolution of these systems. By detecting your position and distances, LISA will improve our understanding of the structure of the Milky Way.
Gravitational waves
Used by LISA Solid gold and platinum cubesKnown as Test masses (slightly smaller than a Rubik's Cube), they float freely in a special casing at the heart of each spacecraft. Gravitational waves occur on a small scale Changes in distances Tracks use these variations between masses in different spacecraft and missions Interferometry Laser.
This technique requires Shoot laser beams From one spacecraft to another, it then superimposes their signal to determine changes in mass over distances of a few billionths of a millimeter. The spacecraft must be designed in such a way that nothing but the geometry of spacetime affects the motion of the masses in free fall.
