Multi-Messenger & Gravitational-Wave Operations
In 2015 humanity heard spacetime ring for the first time; in 2017 it saw and heard the same event at once. This is the operational science of the new astronomy — the detectors that feel a merger a billion light-years away, the alerts that race the news around the world, and the telescopes that chase the light before it fades.
Explore multi-messenger astronomy
- GW Observatories
The gravitational-wave detectors new to the graph — the operating GEO600 testbed, the proposed next-generation Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer, and the space missions DECIGO, Taiji, and TianQin.
6 entries - Detection Methods
How gravitational waves are caught, from ground and space laser interferometry to galaxy-sized pulsar timing arrays.
3 entries - Source Classes
The compact-binary mergers that ring spacetime — binary black holes, binary neutron stars, and black hole–neutron star mergers.
3 entries - Multi-Messenger Channels
Observing a source in more than one messenger at once — gravitational waves with light, neutrinos, gamma rays, radio, and optical.
5 entries - Follow-Up & Data Products
The race from alert to counterpart — localization, counterpart search, rapid response — and the skymaps, waveforms, and catalogs it yields.
7 entries - Alert Systems
How gravitational-wave candidates reach the world in seconds — the LVK public alerts and SCiMMA.
2 entries
The sources that ring spacetime
- Binary Black Hole MergerSource class
The merger of two black holes spiralling together — the most common gravitational-wave source detected, and usually a purely gravitational event with no light. The first ever direct detection, in 2015, was of such a merger over a billion light-years away.
- Binary Neutron Star MergerSource class
The merger of two neutron stars — a gravitational-wave source that also lights up across the electromagnetic spectrum, producing a short gamma-ray burst and a kilonova. The 2017 event GW170817 was seen in both gravitational waves and light, founding multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves.
- Black Hole–Neutron Star MergerSource class
The merger of a black hole with a neutron star — the third class of compact-binary merger, first confidently detected in gravitational waves in early 2020. Whether it produces light depends on whether the black hole tears the neutron star apart before swallowing it.
Data & provenance
Each detector, detection method, source class, alert system, channel, follow-up stage, and data product is a first-class knowledge-graph entity resolved through the Scientific Data Engine, reusing the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA detectors and the LISA concept, the gravitational-wave, multi-messenger, and neutrino methods, the transient classes, the alert systems, the standard-siren distance indicator, and the bands already in the graph. Curated from the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA collaboration, NASA, and ESA. Proposed detectors are stated as such. See source quality.