Soon coming to India? Photo by Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Einstein’s handiwork is making waves across the globe. The Indian government has given initial approval for the construction of LIGO-India, a detector that will complement the two US instruments that last week announced the historic first sighting of gravitational waves.

“Cabinet has granted ‘in-principle’ approval to the LIGO-India mega science proposal for research on gravitational waves,” tweeted the office of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who previously indicated his support in 2014. “The project will motivate Indian students and scientists to explore newer frontiers of knowledge and will add impetus to scientific research.”

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time caused by events like the merger of two black holes. The two US detectors, one in Washington and the other in Louisiana, saw the signal of a merger just a few milliseconds apart, but with just two detectors it cannot pin the source down in the sky. A third LIGO detector will allow researchers to triangulate gravitational wave sources and train other telescopes on the same part of the sky to learn more.


The site for LIGO-India’s two 4-kilometre laser interferometer arms is still to be decided, but there are a number of suitable locations. If full funding is secured, the observatory could be up and running by 2023.

“We’re absolutely delighted to see that the funding for LIGO-India looks like it might come about,” says Shelia Rowan of the University of Glasgow, UK, who is a member of the international LIGO team. Two smaller detectors in Germany and Italy are expected to come online later this year, as well.

“Scientifically we look forward to having a network of detectors around the world. That’s the way we get directional information about where gravitational wave signals are coming from. Having a detector in India would be fantastic.”