In the sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem, humans build “gravitational wave antennas” to broadcast to the cosmos.
Now, Chinese scientists have made a step forward in turning that idea into hardware – only in reverse.
Science and Technology Daily reported on Saturday that a team from the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences had developed the optical core of a giant space detector to listen to the universe.
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The detector is part of a space-based gravitational wave project called Taiji that is designed to pick up gravitational waves rippling through the fabric of space and time.
These waves are created when really massive objects – like black holes – smash into each other, and detecting them could offer insight into the earliest moments of the universe.
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“The ground tests [of the optical core] were a success, and all the key numbers met the strict demands of the mission. That means that the core measurement system of Taiji has officially moved from [theory] to real hardware,” the report said.