Our country's "Taiji Plan" has made a key breakthrough in the further exploration of space gravitational waves.

On May 9th, it was learned from the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that there is new progress in China's space gravitational wave detection "Taiji Plan". The research team has successfully developed a full-function interferometer optical platform and passed strict ground testing, marking an important step forward in China's space gravitational wave detection. The "Taiji Plan" is a self-proposed space gravitational wave detection scheme in China, which plans to use three satellites to accurately measure gravitational waves using lasers at a distance of 3 million kilometers, with extremely high difficulty. Previously, China successfully launched the "Taiji-1" satellite and verified the core technology. It is reported that the newly developed optical platform adopts innovative layout design, which can effectively reduce the interference of temperature changes on measurements. The measurement accuracy reaches the picometer level, equivalent to sensing tiny changes one millionth of the diameter of a hair. Through testing, the equipment noise level has been greatly reduced, the measurement stability has been improved by 10 times, and key indicators fully meet the requirements of space detection. This achievement makes it possible for gravitational wave detection equipment to move from laboratory prototypes to engineering applications.