India to Become Central to LIGO Project

Narendra Modi with the LIGO scientists. (Photo: ANI)

India is set to become a central point in Albert Einstein’s recently proved gravitational waves theory following an agreement signed between India’s department of atomic energy and the US’s National Science Foundation on Thursday.

According to the agreement, signed during the course of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit in Washington for the Nuclear Security Summit, India will have a new Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

LIGO shot to fame earlier this year after its scientists proved the gravitational waves theory of Einstein. In February this year, scientists observed ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe.

An artist’s rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star also called a magnetar is shown in this handout provided by NASA on 10 February 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

What was significant about this project was that now India has agreed to be a part of this project. The possibility is likely to be central to this project partly on account of geography favouring us.

<b>Vikas Swarup, MEA spokesperson</b>

The Indian cabinet has approved Rs. 12,000 crore for the project. The spokesman said that NSF’s Francis Cordova said that India would become central to the LIGO project.

Along with meeting the scientists behind the breakthrough of the gravitational waves theory, Modi also interacted with Indian-origin scientists associated with it.