Science & Technology

Large Hadron Collider starts up again

By T.K. Randall
April 5, 2015

Image: CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Tunnel
Credit: Julian Herzog / CC BY-SA 3.0 (adapted) Having successfully discovered the Higgs boson back in 2012, the Large Hadron Collider was shut down so that it could undergo an upgrade to double its maximum collision capacity.Now capable of reaching power levels of up to 14 teraelectronvolts, the world's largest particle accelerator has begun a new mission to explore uncharted frontiers in particle physics and to unlock the secrets of dark matter, the theoretical substance thought to make up most of the mass in the universe.

"Today at 10:42 am (0842 GMT) a proton beam was back in the 27-kilometre (17-mile) ring, followed at 12:27 pm by a second beam rotating in the opposite direction," CERN said in a statement. "But the most important step is still to come when we increase the energy of the beams to new record levels."


Source: Yahoo! News

Tags: Cern, Large Hadron Collider