Until observations of gravitational waves are successfully made, one can only make intelligent guesses about most of the sources that will be seen. There are many that could be strong enough to be seen by the early detectors: star binaries, supernova explosions, neutron stars, the early universe. In this section, we make rough luminosity estimates using the quadrupole formula and other approximations, which are usually accurate to within factors of order two, and, very importantly, they show how key observables scale with the properties of the systems. Where appropriate we also make use of predictions from the much more accurate modelling that is available for some sources, such as binary systems and black hole mergers. The detectability depends, of course, not only on the intrinsic luminosity of the source, but on how far away it is. Often the biggest uncertainties in making predictions are the spatial density and event rate of any particular class of sources. This is not surprising, since our information at present comes from electromagnetic observations, and as our earlier remarks about the differences between the mechanisms of emission of gravitational and electromagnetic radiation make clear, electromagnetic observations may not strongly constrain the source population.
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