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NASA, Partners Advance LISA Prototype Hardware - NASA Science Engineers and scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, completed tests this month on a second early version of a key element

Engineers & scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, completed tests this month on a second early version of a key element of the upcoming LISA mission.

Read all about it 👉 science.nasa.gov/missions/lis...
Multimedia 👉 svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14955

>> This gives us a more physically accurate description of how black holes move, or kick, after they merge, and how these new compact objects effect the AGN disk over the course of its lifetime."

>> My project focuses on upgrading the black hole merger processes for McFACTS by implementing a numerical relativity surrogate model that solves Einsteins complex equations in a fast and accurate way. >>

Here's a summary of the paper:

"Monte carlo For AGN Channel Testing and Simulation (McFACTS) is a new population synthesis code for simulating binary black hole mergers inside of active galactic nuclei (AGN) disks that are detectable by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) observatories. >>

#LISACommunityTalks

The #LISACommunity recently hosted a talk by Shawn Ray on a paper by Shawn Ray, Keefe Mitman, Emily McPike, Barry McKernan, K.E. Saavik Ford: "Spinning and Kicking New Remnants: Considering Surrogate Models for McFACTS Merger Dynamics", for which a paper will be coming soon!

In his free time, Neil takes advantage of his living in Montana and does a lot of hiking, skiing and hunting. He loves to cook, he's into wine and also runs a private saloon.

#HumansOfLISA #HumansOfLST

🎤 How did you get interested in LISA or science?
"I heard a talk by Bill Folkner on LISA at a Pacific Coast Gravity meeting at Caltech when I was a graduate student and I thought it was the craziest thing I had ever heard."

#HumansOfLISA #HumansOfLST

🎤 What are you most excited for about LISA?
"Discovering unexpected phenomena and previously unimagined astrophysical objects."

#HumansOfLISA #HumansOfLST

Neil Cornish is a Professor at Montana State University, working on Gravitational Wave Astronomy. He is one of the members of the LISA Science Team #HumansOfLST: "I am helping to design and build the Global Fit analysis to extract science from the LISA data."

#HumansOfLISA #HumansOfLST

>> This work connects galactic magnetic fields and their electromagnetic signatures with #LISAMission gravitational-wave observations through their common dependence on hierarchical galaxy mergers, the formation scenario for massive black-hole binaries."

>> Gravitational-wave astronomy offers new insights into these systems; the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will observe the mergers of massive (M ~>10^6 Msol) black-hole binaries, providing constraints on their hosts' evolution. >>

Here's a summary of the paper:

"Large-scale, micro-Gauss magnetic fields are observed throughout galaxies and relate closely to galactic evolution. >>

#LISACommunityTalks

The #LISACommunity recently hosted a talk by Nathan Steinle on a paper by Anuraag Reddy, Nathan Steinle, Samar Safi-Harb, Jo-Anne Brown: "Multi-messenger window into galactic magnetic fields and black hole mergers with LISA", which can be found here 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2504.18986

YouTube video by Dr. Becky FINALLY: evidence for Hawking's AREA THEOREM of black holes

Happy birthday to #GW250114 our loudest detection to date!

In this video, @drbecky.bsky.social explains how we used the signal to test one of Hawking's fundamental ideas about black holes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fLO...

🧪⚛️🔭

The LPF laser was a Nd:YAG 1064 nm laser which delivered approximately 35 mW. We immediately demonstrated full functionality!

📄 See journals.aps.org/prd/abstract... for nearly all details about the first subpicometer interferometer flown in space.

#LPF10anniversary #LISAMission

Today, 10 years ago, we had the first laser light on LPF! 💛🛰️

Laser interferometry was used on LPF to track the position of the test masses along the sensitive axis, and will be used on LISA too for the same purpose.

#LPF10anniversary #LISAMission

[Image credits: University of Glasgow]

>> Here we present a new, computationally efficient approach to Bayesian data augmentation in the time-frequency domain that avoids repeated, costly matrix operations."

Time-frequency wavelet methods can handle non-stationary noise, but data gaps still lead to spectral leakage. It was previously shown that Bayesian data augmentation/gap filling could mitigate spectral leakage in frequency domain analyses, but the computational cost in that approach is prohibitive.

Here's a summary of the paper:

"In the coming decades, the time that gravitational-wave signals spend in detectors will increase, leading to new challenges in analyzing data, namely non-stationary noise and data gaps. >>

#LISACommunityTalks

The #LISACommunity recently hosted a talk by Noah Pearson on a paper by Noah Pearson, Neil J. Cornish: "Handling Data Gaps for the Next Generation of Gravitational-Wave Observatories", which can be found here 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2509.05479

It will take an additional 6 weeks to reach the final operational orbit.

Read more about it here 👉 blogs.esa.int/rocketscienc...

[Credits: text from www.cosmos.esa.int/web/lisa-pat...; video ESA]

#LPF10anniversary #LISAMission

The team commanded five apogee raising manoeuvres, which slowly boosted the elliptical orbit's apogee (furthest point from the earth). On the 6th manoeuvre, commanded on the 12/12/2015), LPF left the Earth behind and headed out towards its final orbit around the 1st Sun-Earth Lagrange point.

YouTube video by European Space Agency, ESA LISA Pathfinder’s journey to L1

On this day, for #LPF10anniversary: following the successful separation from the launch vehicle, the mission operations team at ESOC undertook one of the most complex Launch and Early Operations Phases (LEOP) ever undertaken or an ESA mission.

Watch it here 📽️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=maKX...

These posters highlight the work and the impact of PhD students that worked on LPF and LISA at the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) in Hannover and Potsdam over the course of the years.

#LPF10anniversary #LISAMission

Looking back at the work of each PhD student on the LISA mission reminds us how deeply this project has shaped their skills, careers and scientific impact.

#LPF10anniversary #LISAMission