On December 4, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched a mission successfully to test wave-finding technology. The mission is known as LISA Pathfinder and won’t actually look for waves itself.

Instead the mission will function as trailblazer for the technology, which as per scientists would be helpful in finding these ripples in space-time. ESA is looking forward to launch a later mission in 2034, actually seeking gravitational waves, but it hasn’t finalized the design for that mission so far.

LISA Pathfinder has successfully lifted off at 12:04 am EST on the top of a Vega rocket from French Guiana in South America. The Vega rocket used was a creation of ESA and European company Arianespace. In the coming two weeks the probe will move higher above the planet Earth, ultimately moving into a gravitationally stable point between the sun and the Earth known as L2.

ESA has given a statement that the LISA pathfinder mission is a necessity now because the general ground tests can't forecast a number about how the full experiment will function. In a live stream archived on the website of the agency, Paolo Ferri, ESA operations head, said that that involves aspects like cosmic rays effect on the measurements.

He added, “There were some things that we can't test with this future mission, so we had to go to space. That's where LISA Pathfinder comes in”.

Almost exactly 100 years ago, the prediction of gravitational waves was done. The general theory of relativity by Albert Einstein, published on December 2, 1915, had forecasted that space-time would have ripples, also known as gravitational waves.