Gravitational Waves Can Be Gravitationally Lensed, and This Could Provide Another Way to Measure the Expansion of the Universe - by briankoberlein
Gravitational waves don’t travel through space and time. They are ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself. This is why they are so difficult to detect. We can only observe them by closely watching how objects bent and stretched within spacetime. But despite their oddness, gravitational waves behave in many of the same ways as light, and astronomers can use that fact to study cosmic expansion.
As with light, gravitational waves ripple along at a constant finite speed. The same speed as light. So gravitational waves are affected by large-scale gravitational deformations just as light is. Gravitational waves can be deflected as they pass near a galaxy or massive star, and can be gravitationally lensed just like light. The difference is that, unlike light, gravitational waves aren’t absorbed or scattered by matter. They are only affected by the gravitational structure of spacetime.
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