NASA reveals images of new telescope set to track Gravitational Waves

New Delhi: US space exploration agency NASA has revealed that it has developed a prototype of a telescope that can be used to study gravitational waves in outer space. The telescope which is LISA short form for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna is jointly developed by NASA and European Space Agency.

Ryan DeRosa, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said:

Twin telescopes aboard each spacecraft will both transmit and receive infrared laser beams to track their companions, and NASA is supplying all six of them to the LISA mission…

To study the gravitational waves, three spacecraft will be positioned in the Earth’s orbit in a triangular format with 1.6 million miles on each side. This will help the scientists and researchers to triangulate the gravitational waves. Furthermore, all the 3 spacecraft will carry 6 telescopes in total (2 on each spacecraft) to detect infrared laser beams from the other spacecraft. Researchers expect to detect a gravitational wave when one of the three spacecraft alters their characteristic pattern.

When will the LISA mission be launched?

The LISA mission is set to be launched in the mid-2030s. However, the exact date of the launch has not been yet confirmed by NASA.

What is the concept of Gravitational waves?

Gravitational waves are an outer space phenomenon which is triggered by the collision of 2 black holes. The phenomenon was discovered for the first time by Albert Einstein in 1916. However, apart from the theoretical model, a working/practical model of the same was not found till 2016 and Einstein’s theory remained true only in pen and paper.

However, in 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration comprising National Science Foundation, Caltech, and MIT researchers detected the first gravitational waves ever, proving Einstein’s theory right. By detecting and studying gravitational waves, scientists hope to enhance humanity’s understanding of the universe and less-explored phenomena such as black holes and the Big Bang that may not be easy to analyse using other tools, NASA said.