The Flemish Minister-President Matthias Diependaele (Flemish nationalist) visited the English university city of Cambridge on Tuesday to lobby for the installation of the Einstein Telescope in the border region between Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In June Mr Diependaele visited Scotland where he met with scientists at Glasgow and Strathclyde universities to ask them to support the installation of the telescope at a site in the Maas-Rhein Euroregion.
Once built the Einstein Telescope will be a huge underground tool designed to measure to study gravitational waves, i.e., oscillations in the curvature of space-time produced by major cosmic events such as the explosion of a star or the merger of black holes. Studying these waves could lead to a better understanding of the universe.
This underground observatory will be the most powerful of its kind in Europe. The location of the telescope has yet to be determined. Belgium, the Netherlands, and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia have submitted a joint bid for it to be sited in Maas-Rhine Euroregion that consists of Limburg and Liège provinces in Belgium, the Dutch province of Limburg and the German state of North Rhine Westphalia.
The University of Cambridge will be involved in this project, hence the Flemish Prime Minister’s lobby work for the Maas-Rhine bid during a visit to the university on Tuesday.
The total cost of installing the telescope is estimated to be around 3 billion euro. The Netherlands has already committed to investing nearly 1 billion euro, with the remainder to be financed by Belgium and Germany. The Flemish government has pledged 200 million euro to help pay for the project. Scientists hope that the Walloon goverment and the federal government will also agree to provide financial support.
During his visit to Cambridge University Mr Diependaele met with the university’s Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice. In addition to the Einstein Telescope they also discussed cooperation between Cambridge University and Leuven University’s (KU Leuven) research centre Imec that is specialised in nanoelectronics.