back to article Boffins tentatively fire up grav wave sniffer

European Space Agency (ESA) scientists have begun to fire up systems aboard the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft - designed to "test the technology needed to develop future space-borne gravitational wave detectors". The LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) Pathfinder is now on its way to its final destination orbiting Lagrange …

  1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    too late ?

    Rumours abound that gravity waves have already been identified by LIGO.

    LISA is a nice tool but may not have a use ... unless the rumours are wrong or LIGO needs independent confirmation of it's findings.

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: too late ?

      Early days yet: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/12/gravitation-waves-signal-rumoured-science

    2. Grikath

      Re: too late ?

      Not really.. LIGO may or may not have detected a blip, but you'd need something along the lines of this satellite to expand on accuracy and detection.

      Now if both systems are in place, and both give a signal on [event X], you're into Bacon. Especially since they try and detect the same thing in different ways.

      1. MrRimmerSIR!

        Re: too late ?

        Especially if they both give a signal but at a slightly different time which would presumably allow the eggheads to work out where said ripple came from.

    3. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: too late ?

      A single anomaly measured by a single instrument isn't really proof of anything. It could help you in finding where/how to look for better evidence and confirmation but it's not enough to conclusively decide as yet. The LISA system in it's fully operational state with 3 sats could give much more accurate and clear readings that DO allow the true boffins to come to a conclusion.

    4. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: too late ?

      As I understand it, your gravitational waves come in different frequencies (a bit like light). Lisa is designed to detect ones that you couldn't possibly detect on Earth with any set up - LIGO is designed to detect others, and will almost certainly see some before Lisa will be operational. It's a bit like asking if we need satellites to study the sun in ultraviolet light, because you only have to look up and you can see that the sun is there.

      Note: What I've said may have some minor errors - I don't know too much about the payload side.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just don't let William Tell anywhere near it.

  3. E 2

    Could this tech - sensors positioned very far apart communicating with lasers - be used for an optical telescope with a huge effective mirror diameter? Sort of like how the Very Large array combines radio telescopes across the Earth?

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Boffin

      For science!

      Yes.

    2. Grikath

      Yes. Although they wouldn't necessarily need to communicate between them. They would just need to be able to aim at the same bit of the universe accurately enough, and send what they detect Home for processing.

      It would make the telescopes themselves a lot less complicated, which equates to Less Things Going Wrong. Always a good thing in space..

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You're thinking of the High Sensitivity Array (HSA), not the Very Large Array (VLA). The HSA is based upon the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), which spans the U.S. - Hawaii, but also incorporates the VLA (NM - USA), Arecibo (Puerto Rico), Greenbank (WV - USA) and Effelsburg (Germany) telescopes.

      1. E 2

        Yes, VLA is the wrong thing. I was thinking of the Square Kilometer Array.

  4. joed

    who cared for asteroid mining

    when you can find "46mm gold/platinum alloy cubes" floating near by

  5. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Don't you just love it?

    Maybe it's gravity fluctuations?

    I get downvotes for explicitly mentioning a rumour, but Lester gets upvotes for linking a Graudian story containing a reference to a tweet about a rumour ...

    If that's not wierd ...

  6. an-ominous-mass
    Facepalm

    Satellite

    I occasionally work for a gentle Englishman with 80 years of life.

    His background is instrument design for the UK/US Nimbus satellite collaboration.

    In his tiny office, utilising a pendulum, ring shaped rare earth magnets, graphine and a fine wire coil he is creating a gravity wave measurement instrument.

    ..Because he is interested..

    I kid you not.

    My take on this is that when you have been there and done that you don't need to prove it by launching an even more expensive satellite...

    Regards from the South Pacific

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like