Landmark gravitational waves breakthrough welcomed in China

News that elusive gravitational waves - tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by violent astronomical events - have been observed for the first time has been hailed in China.

The discovery, made by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory in the US, confirms the last outstanding prediction made in Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

After months of speculation, scientists from the Advanced LIGO project confirmed they had detected gravitational waves caused by two black holes merging about 1.3 billion years ago.