NASA says gravity-wave hunter could find hidden worlds

LISA is a space observatory being built to catch gravitational waves. Those are ripples in space-time thrown off when massive objects like black holes orbit each other. Two new NASA-led studies, published this week, show LISA could do something nobody designed it for: find planets. A planet tugging on its star creates a smaller version of the same ripple. If LISA can pick that up, it becomes a planet-finder too.

Why does that matter? The planets LISA could spot are the hardest kind to find today. The method works best around white dwarfs. Those are the small, burned-out cores left behind when a star like our sun dies. Regular telescopes struggle to see anything orbiting something that dim. A gravitational-wave detector doesn't care how bright the star is. It only cares how hard the planet pulls on it.

Keep reading — what to watch

Will LISA actually fly? The observatory is still in development, led by the European Space Agency with NASA as a partner. Launch is expected in the mid-2030s. Until then, this stays a promising idea on paper. But it's one more reason to be excited for this mission. It was already set to change how we study the universe.