The detection of gravitational waves can help humans find complete information about the physical processes occurring in the deep and high-density parts of celestial sources, and draw a new "space map of celestial distribution". The development of laser interferometer has promoted the research heat of gravitational wave detection. The United States, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Australia, India and China have set up gravitational wave detection plans and projects. With the bibliometric analysis method, this paper analyzes the development process, the main countries concerned, the key institutions, the funding and the research hotspots related with the middle and upper atmospheric density. Through the publication data analysis, it can be concluded that the annual publications in this field show a rising trend. The overall global publication trend is greatly affected by the United States, Germany, Britain and Italy. The United States has the largest number of publications in this field. The global cooperation in this field is very close.There are five regional cooperation networks, including the United States cooperation network, China -Australia cooperation network, Japan cooperation network and Germany-UK cooperation network.The research hotspots focus on the gravitational wave source, gravitational wave detection data, gravitational wave detection devices, gravitational wave generation mechanism and gravitational wave observation object.