Research by Chinese physicists has concluded that the moon’s crust is capable of absorbing and amplifying certain types of gravitational waves produced by pairs of white dwarfs and other compact objects in the Milky Way.

According to Russia Today, this discovery allows for the use of the moon as a “antenna” to detect these kinds of spacetime ripples.

The researchers, who are professors at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: “Gravitational waves contain unique information about the early history of the universe and the merging processes of objects within the Milky Way. Research has shown that the moon’s crust can amplify these cosmic ripples, turning it into a giant natural detector. This makes it possible to deploy seismic measuring instruments in several regions of the moon to detect gravitational waves with millihertz frequencies.”