How the Einstein Telescope will detect "a proton sneezing"

To record the passage of gravitational waves, these space-time wrinkles detected for the first time in 2015, it is necessary to have very sensitive instruments. "Extremely sensitive, even," says Dr. Cédric Lenaerts, head of the micro and nano-surface engineering laboratory at the Centre Space de Liège (CSL). "It is a matter of detecting something that is of the order of... sneezing a proton!" To capture this very weak signal, scientists rely on …