The moon as a gravitational wave detector, using seismometers

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For most searches for gravitational waves, a lunar base does not have a compelling advantage over earth‐bound or earth‐orbit bases. The exception might be searches for known, predictable continuous wave sources with frequencies in the milliHertz region, which would use long period seismometers to detect the mechanical response of the whole moon both on and off its quadrupole resonance. An estimate of the two simplest sources of instrument noise indicates that an interesting sensitivity is tough but possible. Seismic noise is very uncertain, but might be prohibitive, in which case the network could turn to seismic studies.