A Chinese satellite helped define the energy level of a newly discovered gravitational wave - tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by violent cosmic events.

Scientists at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the United States announced on Monday night they had discovered the first-ever gravitational wave created by the collision of two neutron stars - superdense remnants of massive stars - on Aug 17.

Huiyan, or Insight, China's first Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope, put into orbit on June 15, has been cooperating with other observatories and located the source of the wave some 130 million light years away, according to a news release from the Institute of High Energy Physics, a unit of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.