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JPL is Hiring!
July 12th, 2026
JPL is hiring a gravitational-wave research scientist
LISA Misson and Science
Studying the universe with gravitational waves is an exciting, relatively new field in astronomy. Projects like LIGO, Virgo, and NANOGrav are now using observatories to study gravitational waves from distant sources. Most observations so far have come from the mergers of black holes and neutron stars.
LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, is planned to launch in 2035. It will be the first orbiting gravitational-wave observatory. Placing an observatory in space allows for a very long baseline for the instrument: LISA will be made of three separate spacecraft, linked by lasers across over 2 million kilometers of empty space. This large scale is important, as it will allow LISA to study gravitational waves with frequencies of a few mHz, opening a new band in the gravitational wave spectrum.
While no one has observed gravitational waves in this frequency band yet, we can predict likly sources based on other observations. It is likely that LISA will see signals from:
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Mergers of super-massive black holes in the core of galaxies. These could give clues on how galaxies evolve and grow over time.
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Compact object binaries, such as white dwarfs and neutron stars. These could be the first gravitational waves observed from our own galaxy, and LISA will see thousands of them.
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Extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs), where a solar mass black hole merges with a super massive black hole.
All of these sources can provide insights on a wide range of topics in astronomy and physics.