Date: 13 Mar 2012
Satellite: NGO
Depicts: Plots of a gravitational wave passing NGO
Copyright: ESO

A graphical representation of the passage of a gravitational wave through a ring of masses. Four phases of one cycle of the spatial distortion by a wave normal to the plane of the figure are shown both for the plus ('+', upper row) and cross ('×', lower row) polarisations. Three of the masses in the ring are used to represent the three NGO spacecraft, and the time-varying changes in the red arms show what the NGO interferometer would measure.