Gravitational Scattering at High Energies

The ultrarelativistic scattering of two « elementary » objects interacting gravitationally is a problem that has inspired several interesting developments over the last four decades. I will review some of these developments in (super)gravity and string theory, and finally discuss how they are helping us to better understand gravitational binaries in general.Supported by the « 2021 Balzan Prize for Gravitation: Physical and Astrophysical Aspects », awarded to Thibault Damour