The Australian National University will help build a giant laser to measure supernovas and black holes in deep space.

The ANU will partner with the University of Adelaide and Australian Research Council on the project.

The device will be built in the United States at a cost of $US200 million and will take about seven years.

The laser sends light down tubes 4 kilometre long to detect movement changes in the universe.

Project leader Professor David McClelland says the device will allow them to look at space in a whole new way.

"Our way of sensing the universe, until now, has always been with electromagnetic waves with optical waves, microwaves, radio waves but they're all electromagnetic in origin," he said.

"The gravitational waves are something totally different, they're a new form of medium for which we can observe the universe.

"It's a bit like being able to use a sense of hearing for the first time."

Professor McClelland says the laser will open up a new field of astronomy and has the potential to revolutionise scientific understanding of the cosmos.

"Unlike light, which gets absorbed and scattered and obscured along the way, when gravitational waves are emitted they interact so weakly with matter that we see them as they were, as they were generated," he said.

"So we can look at the inside of a supernova or we can look at the very moments of the big bang with them."