Tian-Yang Sun

The Taiji detector, planned for launch into space, will pick up the trembling of space caused by collisions of enormous black holes. But its data is frequently marred by random bursts, like static crackling in a radio receiver.

Ever since Einstein predicted gravitational lensing, and gravitational waves were first heard by LIGO detectors, physicists have dreamed of catching the lensed echo — a repeating signal from one merger, multiplied by the gravity of a massive body.