China begins construction of world's highest altitude gravitational waves telescopes in Tibet

Parts of Nagri is last Tibetan prefecture at China's border with India. (Representational image)

Beijing: China's plans to set up the world's highest altitude telescopes close to Line of Actual Control with India have been executed.

China has begun the construction of the gravitational wave telescopes in a Tibet prefecture to detect faintest echoes resonating from Universe, which may reveal more about the Big Bang theory.

With a budget of USD 18.8 million, the project has been code-named Ngari No 1, 30 km south of Shiquanhe Town in Ngari Prefecture. Nagri is the last Tibetan prefecture at China's border with India.

The observatory is being built on a plateau 5,000 meters above sea level.

It has been identified as one of the best places in the Northern Hemisphere for possibly observing primordial gravitational waves, state-run China Daily reported today.

The observatory is expected to be finished within a period of five years.

Gravitational waves, predicted by Albert Einstein in 1915 as part of his general theory of relativity, are generated when celestial bodies collide.

The advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the US became the first to detect them in September 2015 when it picked up waves caused by the merging of two black holes 1.3 billion years ago.

However, primordial gravitational waves, which the Tibet observatory will focus on, are believed to have been created about 13.8 billion years ago by the Big Bang, the explosion that scientists say created the Universe, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.

So far, primordial gravitational waves have never been detected.

Electromagnetic radiation travels through space in light waves that are distinguished by varying wavelengths.

One of them, the submillimeter wavelength, will be key to finding primordial gravitational waves, Wang Junjie, an astrophysicist at the National Astronomical Observatories, part of the CAS told the Daily.

"The Big Bang spread sub-millimeter light waves over a wide area. So researchers will install a submillimeter telescope on the mountains in Ali to search for submillimeter waves and uncover primordial gravitational waves from the Big Bang," he said.

"What we're searching for is primordial gravitational waves that have traveled for 13.8 billion years before arriving at Earth, and, if they exist, they're very weak," he said.

(With PTI inputs)