India's 1st gravitational wave observatory is coming up in Maharashtra
Big news for Indian science: work is underway to set up the country's first gravitational wave observatory, LIGO-India, in Maharashtra's Hingoli district.
The project is expected to be unveiled by 2030, and once it's live, LIGO-India will join two US detectors to help track cosmic ripples.
How will LIGO-India work?
LIGO-India will have four-kilometer-long vacuum-sealed arms with super-sensitive mirrors hanging on ultra-thin fibers—basically, it's designed to catch tiny ripples in space-time from dramatic events like black hole collisions.
This tech helped confirm Einstein's prediction back in 2015 when the US detectors spotted their first gravitational wave.
What will it mean for India?
LIGO-India is expected to level up India's skills in high-tech fields like vacuum engineering and big data.
Scientists hope it'll help us spot more gravitational waves and maybe even signals from the Big Bang itself—giving us fresh clues about how our universe began.