Engineers operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have smashed together proton beams in the machine for the very first time.

The step was described as a “great achievement” for those working on the huge physics experiment.

The low-energy collisions came after researchers circulated two beams simultaneously in the LHC’s 27km-long tunnel earlier on Monday.

The LHC will smash together beams of protons to shed light on the cosmos.

Operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), the LHC is the world’s largest machine and will create similar conditions to those present moments after the Big Bang.

Scientists will search for signs of the Higgs boson, a sub-atomic particle that is crucial to our current understanding of physics.

Although it is predicted to exist, scientists have not yet detected it.

Researchers working on the collider have said they are delighted with the quick progress made since the machine restarted on Friday.

“It’s a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time,” said Cern’s director-general Rolf Heuer.

“But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there’s still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme.”

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