SAN DIEGO -- University of California, San Diego's Division of Physical Sciences received a $400,000 gift to partially fund a telescope that will help researchers better understand how the universe began, officials said Wednesday.

The donation came from the James B. Ax Family Foundation, which works to advance new areas of scientific research, according to UCSD.

It will help fund the $1 million cost of acquiring the telescope, known as "POLARBEAR," which will allow physicists -- for the first time -- to measure the gravitational waves that emanated from the universe during the first moments of its creation, known as the Big Bang.

It will be made up of a 3.5-meter diameter aluminum mirror, which focuses radiation onto an array of 320 microwave-sensitive detectors.

The telescope is expected to be built in 2008 at a site east of the Sierra Nevada mountains near the Owens Valley.

The project is a collaboration of UCSD, University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Colorado.