The $US200 million ($A280million) project, based at two new United States observatories, will allow scientists to zoom in on sounds dating back to the beginnings of the universe more than 13 billion years ago.

The new ultra-sensitive instruments will allow data previously gathered in a year to be collected within hours, giving scientists the chance to test theories about the formation on the universe only a split second after the Big Bang, a period scientists refer to as the Planck epoch, or the earliest moment in time.

Described as one of the most important scientific instruments of the 21st century, the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories would allow scientists to ''listen in on the sounds of the universe, as unseen explosions, collisions, and whirlpools shake the fabric of space-time'', the director of Germany's Albert Einstein Institute, Bernard Schutz, said.

The seven-year project will operate from observatories in Washington and Louisiana, where the lasers have been installed. Australia is the third international partner, with Britain and Germany, to join the research venture.

The ANU, the Australian Research Council and the University of Adelaide have jointly contributed $2.4million to the project to build facilities to connect to the US observatory network. ANU's centre for gravitational physics director Professor David McClelland said it would give Australian scientists the opportunity to play a key role in developing a new area of academic research regarded as ''the most exciting frontier of physics in the 21st century''.

Professor McClelland said direct detection of gravitational waves would allow ''a new way of sensing the universe akin to using our sense of hearing for the first time''.

''It will reveal processes which occur in the very core of cataclysmic astrophysical events and at the earliest moments of the Big Bang. New events will be recorded, igniting a revolution in astronomy comparable with the advent of radio astronomy.''

The project was approved by the US National Science Board last year and will increase the sensitivity of existing instruments by a factor of 10, giving a 1000-fold increase in the number of astrophysical objects that can be detected as potentially generating gravitational wave signals.

Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his famed general theory of relativity.

But technology powerful enough to detect their presence has only been developed in the past 20 years.

Executive director of the laser laboratory Professor Jay Marx said, ''We anticipate that this new instrument will see gravitational wave sources possibly on a daily basis, with excellent signal strengths, allowing details of the waveforms to be observed and compared with theories of neutron stars, black holes, and other astrophysical objects moving near the speed of light.''