Britain, Germany build interferometer to find black holes

17 Jun 2002

(Reuter) British and German astronomers said Tuesday they were joining forces to build an observatory to test Albert Einstein's theories about the universe and look for distant objects such as black holes. Britain's Particle Physics and Astronomy Council said in a statement that work had begun on an instrument designed to detect gravitational waves, one of the most elusive phenomena of the cosmos.

The GE0600, being built in the German city of Hanover, will use lasers to try to capture the waves, which Einstein's theories predict should be produced by violent phenomena such as black holes and supernovas.The GE0600 in Hanover will coordinate measurements with similar instruments being built in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory project) as well as in Italy. Gravitational waves passing through the Earth should affect all four sites at slightly different times, allowing scientists to triangulate and find their origin.