Here’s Why We Should Put a Gravitational Wave Observatory on the Moon
This schematic shows one of the LGWA’s detectors on the floor of a lunar PSR. Image Credit: LGWA

Here’s Why We Should Put a Gravitational Wave Observatory on the Moon

Alvin Lieberman Alvin Lieberman

Alvin Lieberman

CHIEF SYSTEMS ENGINEER | PE | ENGR, MSEE, BEE | NASA,FAA,IBM,NRL,USAF,USN,SSPO | S&T | RDT&E | AIAA,IEEE,NSPE,INCOSE,SPIE,ION,ANS,NDIA |

Published Apr 28, 2024
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Scientists detected the first long-predicted gravitational wave in 2015, and since then, researchers have been hungering for better detectors. But the Earth is warm and seismically noisy, and that will always limit the effectiveness of Earth-based detectors. Is the Moon the right place for a new gravitational wave observatory? It might be. Sending telescopes into space worked well, and mounting a GW observatory on the Moon might, too, though the proposal is obviously very complex. Most of astronomy is about light. The better we can sense it, the more we learn about nature. That’s why telescopes like the Hubble and the JWST are in space. Earth’s atmosphere distorts telescope images and even blocks some light, like infrared. Space telescopes get around both of those problems and have revolutionized astronomy. Gravitational waves aren’t light, but sensing them still requires extreme sensitivity. Just as Earth’s atmosphere can introduce ‘noise’ into telescope observations, so can Earth’s seismic activity cause problems for gravitational wave detectors. The Moon has a big advantage over our dynamic, ever-changing planet: it has far less seismic activity. We’ve known since the Apollo days that the Moon has seismic activity. But unlike Earth, most of its activity is related to tidal forces and tiny meteorite strikes. Most of its seismic activity is also weaker and much deeper than Earth’s. That’s attracted the attention of researchers developing the Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna (LGWA). ... Evan Gough, Universe Today

Behrokh Beiranvand

Staff Scientist

8mo

Thank you for sharing

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Satyavolu Papa Rao

8mo

Thank you for posting this - fascinating!

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