LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Kamioka Gravitational-Wave Detector (KAGRA) will soon team up with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) of the Untied States and Europe's Virgo in the search for subtle shakings of space and time known as gravitational waves, according to a release of LIGO on Friday.

Representatives for the three observatories signed a memorandum of agreement about their collaborative efforts on Friday, which includes plans for joint observations and data sharing.

"This is a great example of international scientific cooperation," said David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory at California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"Having KAGRA join our network of gravitational-wave observatories will significantly enhance the science in the coming decade," he said.

"At present, KAGRA is in the commissioning phase, after the completion of its detector construction this spring. We are looking forward to joining the network of gravitational-wave observations later this year," said Takaaki Kajita, principal investigator of the KAGRA project and co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 2015, the twin detectors of LIGO, one in Washington and the other in Louisiana, made history by making the first direct detection of gravitational waves, a discovery that earned three of the project's founders the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Since then, LIGO and its partner Virgo have identified more than 30 likely detections of gravitational waves, mostly from colliding black holes.

"The more detectors we have in the global gravitational-wave network, the more accurately we can localize the gravitational-wave signals on the sky, and the better we can determine the underlying nature of cataclysmic events that produced the signals," Reitze said.

Having a fourth detector will also increase the overall detection rate, helping scientists to probe and understand some of the most energetic events in the universe, according to LIGO.

KAGRA is expected to come online for the first time in December of this year, joining the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo, which began on April 1.

According to LIGO, the Japanese detector will pioneer two new approaches to gravitational-wave searches. It will be the first kilometer-scale gravitational-wave observatory to operate underground, which will dampen unwanted noise from winds and seismic activity; and it will be the first to use cryogenically chilled mirrors, a technique that cuts down on thermal noise.

LIGO is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by Caltech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Enditem

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