Science / Medicine : Search for Gravity Waves Planned

The National Science Foundation announced last week that Livingston, La., near Baton Rouge, and Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington have been chosen out of 19 candidates for one of the largest research projects in foundation history.

The project will attempt to detect gravitational waves for the first time, a discovery that could help explain the origins of the universe.

The two sites will operate as a single observatory.

The project is dedicated to detecting cosmic gravitational waves and harnessing those waves for scientific research, the NSF said. Those waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by violent events in the distant universe, such as the collision of black holes or the explosion of a supernova.

Albert Einstein predicted the existence of these gravitational waves in 1918 in his general theory of relativity. The waves have never been detected, but scientists have been confident that they exist, the foundation said.