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Successful test drive for space-based gravitational-wave detector
Mission paves the way for planned €1-billion space observatory.

Elizabeth Gibney
25 February 2016

Scientists have long dreamed of launching a constellation of detectors into space to observe gravitational waves — the ripples in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein and observed for the first time earlier this month.

That dream is now a step closer to reality. Researchers working on a €400-million (US$440-million) mission to try out the necessary technology in space for the first time — involving firing lasers between metal cubes in free fall — have told Nature that the initial test drive is performing just as well as they had hoped.

 

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