LISA key visual

Artist's impression of ESA’s Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, LISA. The triple-spacecraft mission will be the first space-based observatory to study gravitational waves: ripples in spacetime caused by the most powerful events in the Universe.

From its vantage point in space, LISA will capture gravitational waves of lower frequencies than is possible from Earth, uncovering events of a different scale – all the way back to the dawn of time.

This will enable scientists to trace how massive black holes merge and grow across cosmic ages, explore the fundamental nature of gravity, and study the rate at which the Universe expands.

To achieve this feat, LISA is designed to be a constellation of three spacecraft.They will fly in a triangular formation, trailing Earth in its orbit around the Sun. Each side of the equilateral triangle will span 2.5 million km, more than six times the Earth-Moon distance.