The European Space Agency is building a space-based gravitational wave observatory

LIGO is part of the advanced gravitational wave detector network

Like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, Europe's Virgo Gravitational Wave Interferometer and Japan's Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector reflect laser beams down perpendicular tunnels to detect gravitational waves in the patterns created by the recombined waves. Future observatories are expected to contribute to this network, further improving gravitational wave detections.

The next generation of gravitational wave detectors may include a triangular design

The Einstein Telescope will use three pairs of underground detectors—each with arms separated by 60 degrees—arranged in an equilateral triangle. The European observatory will work alongside the Cosmic Explorer, a pair of new US detectors, to provide an eightfold increase in sensitivity over LIGO and extend the current detection frequency range.

Gravitational waves are detected at LIGO by measuring shifts in interfering lasers

The instruments at each site send lasers down equally long arms, which should take the same amount of time to travel between suspended mirrors. Passing gravitational waves alter the shape of space—lengthening one arm and shrinking the other—altering how long it takes the lasers to complete their path, which scientists can measure.

The European Space Agency's Euclid telescope maps dark matter

As light rays travel near massive objects in space, their paths can be distorted on their way to Earth, causing objects to appear displaced, magnified, shrunken, or sheared. By simulating these effects for various mass distributions, astronomers can match the distortion to a simulated mass and compare it with the observed visible matter to infer the presence of dark matter.

Potential LIGO sites were selected in pairs, approximately 3,000 kilometers apart

The 1,864-mile distance meant gravitational wave signals would be detected no more than 10 milliseconds apart, ruling out many background signals. The sites needed sufficient plots of nearly flat land, proximity to infrastructure (e.g., electricity), and adequate distance from urban areas and geologically active areas to reduce environmental noise.

The construction of LIGO needed to compensate for Earth's curvature

Across the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) arms, the height of Earth's surface falls by almost a meter, preventing the lasers traveling within the arms from meeting the mirror at the end of each. Concrete slabs built beneath the arms help keep them level and provide structural support against seismic vibrations.

The first interferometric gravitational wave detector was invented in 1972

Robert Weiss completed the designs after his students asked about an earlier apparatus that used stretched aluminum cylinders to detect passing gravitational waves. Unfamiliar with general relativity and hoping to keep the course focused on experimental tests rather than mathematics, Reiss later asked his students to consider his device for homework. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Scientists have proposed using lasers to push space trash into Earth's atmosphere

Such projects would allow most debris to burn up and no longer pose a risk to active satellites, telescopes, and astronauts on space stations. Enacting these plans would require substantial investments from private and governmental space agencies and overcoming international laws that prevent the removal of another country's space equipment.

Lagrange points offer energy-efficient orbits for telescopes

Lagrange Points are special locations where gravitational forces let spacecraft "park" without constant course corrections, making them ideal for science missions. NASA’s James Webb Telescope uses Lagrange Point 2 to stay aligned with Earth while orbiting the Sun.

Gaia mapped two billion stars in the Milky Way

Using geometric parallax, the European Space Agency mission made position measurements accurate to 2.78 × 10⁻¹⁰ degrees, revealing large-scale galactic structure and dynamics. Remnants of ancient galactic mergers were also identified within the Milky Way.

In 1974, a pair of neutron stars provided the first evidence of gravitational waves

Observations of a pulsar—a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits light—revealed it to be part of a system of two stars that orbited one another in a shrinking orbit, indicating gradual energy loss. Calculations showed that the changing orbit was consistent with gravitational waves predicted to carry energy away from such a system.

James Webb Space Telescope aims to unlock secrets of the early universe

Decades in the making, JWST is designed to study the universe in infrared light, allowing it to see through cosmic dust and observe ancient galaxies, star formation, and potentially life-supporting exoplanets. The Webb will orbit the sun at a stable point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Gravity Probe B verified that rotating objects drag spacetime

The experiment involved attaching four freely floating gyroscopes to a telescope aimed at a distant star for a year. The observed angular shift of the gyroscopes as a result of Earth's rotation pulling on spacetime was approximately 0.0000012 degrees from the amount predicted by general relativity.

The first image of a black hole was created from an international telescope network

The Event Horizon Telescope united radio observatories worldwide to image the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*. The team couldn’t transmit their massive dataset online, so they physically flew hundreds of terabytes of data to MIT aboard airplanes.

The accidental birth of radio astronomy and the benefits of a moon-based telescope

Detecting radio waves from distant celestial objects is complicated by noise from solar wind, which the nighttime side of the moon is shielded from. If lunar temperature extremes can be overcome, the environment may serve as an optimal future home for radio astronomy, a field that began in 1928 when a 30-meter-long directional antenna, mostly out of brass and wood, picked up signals from the Sagittarius constellation.

Supermassive black holes create pressure waves, detectable as extremely low sounds

Space is largely silent because it lacks a medium for sound waves. Some Mars rovers capture sounds of wind, though the sounds are too low to hear. Through sonification, astronomical data can be translated into hearable sounds for broader engagement.

Through 2025, two-thirds of known exoplanets have been detected via transits

This technique involves observing periodic, consistent dips in a star's brightness caused by an exoplanet passing in front of it. Observing wobbles in a star as it is pulled by an orbiting exoplanet's gravity has become the second most common detection method, followed by microlensing and direct exoplanet observation.

Take a 360-degree tour of the particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider

The ATLAS experiment integrates concentric layers of sensors to analyze the properties of particles that emerge from the collisions of accelerated matter. More than 3 petabytes of data—equivalent to 600 years of music—can be expected to be collected from this experiment yearly (VR device-compatible).

Voyager Station, the world's first space hotel, is planned for 2027

The structure spans 488 meters in diameter and will rotate to simulate one-sixth of Earth's gravity while circumnavigating the planet every 90 minutes. The Voyager Station is designed to accommodate 450 guests and 150 crew members, providing amenities such as restaurants, a sports hall, and a movie theater.

NASA's Near-Earth Object Surveyor can detect asteroids coming from the sun

Telescopes directed at the sun or lacking heat shields may become damaged, limiting our ability to monitor potentially dangerous objects coming from that direction. The NEO Surveyor is built to overcome this problem and spot asteroids that reflect as little as 5% of incoming light.

Watch a 4K time-lapse of auroras seen from the International Space Station

The video was created from 711 photos taken by European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli on Sept. 15, 2017, as part of the Vitality, Innovation, Technology, and Ability mission.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Fermilab's ICARUS experiment is searching for hypothetical sterile neutrinos

Neutrinos are a group of three chargeless, lightweight particles that can transform into one another via a quantum mechanical phenomenon called neutrino oscillations. The rate of these oscillations can be determined by measuring the amount of each type at different distances, where data inconsistencies would suggest the existence of new physics.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

ESA’s Juice and NASA’s Europa Clipper will search for habitability near Jupiter

Three of Jupiter’s moons—Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto—possess subsurface oceans that may support life. While Clipper will perform flybys of Europa, Juice will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer Solar System.

As of 2025, scientific evidence strongly supports 3I/ATLAS being a comet

Claims of alien technology would require the celestial object to transmit measurable technological signals, which were not detected by the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope. Previous telescope observations identified that 3I/ATLAS's chemical composition, structure, and orbital characteristics are consistent with those of an interstellar comet.

SpaceX has launched thousands of its Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit

Every launched batch of satellites contains roughly 60 of the desk-sized gadgets. The batch is released at random into an initial orbit, and it takes time for them to naturally spread out enough before operators begin unfolding their antennae.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.