Interesting that a significant percentage of the total mass involved will be lost to producing a gravitational wave.
All my mass could be converted to a gravitational wave and they probably couldn’t detect it even if it happened right next to the LIGO detector (which is a total, perhaps very erroneous, guess on my part!).
OTOH, all my mass could be instantly converted to EM radiation via some nuclear process and, OMG, would they ever be able to detect it, and detect it far, far away... Makes you go, “Hmmm...”
Space, ostensibly a very light and ethereal thing, is very, very difficult to bend or get waving.