THE search for gravitational waves has a major new player, with China joining the fray.
Predicted by Einstein a century ago, these ripples in space-time were only recently spotted. Last February, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) team announced the very first detection, traced to a pair of colliding black holes.
Observatories in Italy and Japan will join the search over the next few years, and another is planned in India. Now China has started construction of its Ngari-1 telescope, which will be seeking out gravitational waves of a specific kind.
Located 5250 metres above sea level in Tibet, Ngari-1 is ideally situated to pick up primordial ripples from the big bang. A team using the BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole had announced their detection in 2014, but it turned out to be noise from dust inside our galaxy.
Ngari-1 is scheduled to be operational by 2021.
This article appeared in print under the headline “China in ripple hunt”
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