Science & Technology

Newly upgraded Large Hadron Collider could solve mystery of dark matter

By T.K. Randall
April 22, 2022

Image: CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Tunnel
Credit: Julian Herzog / CC BY-SA 3.0 (adapted) Having previously confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs boson particle, the Large Hadron Collider, which is situated near Geneva in Switzerland, is gearing up for its third run having been upgraded and improved during a lengthy maintenance period spanning three years.

In the very near future, scientists at the facility will be turning on the world's largest atom smasher in the hope of bringing about a host of exciting new discoveries.

The team will be particularly keen to find evidence of dark matter - a mysterious form of matter which, despite making up a large percentage of the mass of the universe - has never been directly observed.

The collider has been significantly upgraded since it last fired up and there are plans to conduct experiments for three years before it will be shut down for yet another set of upgrades."We are going to increase the number of collisions drastically and therefore the probability of new discoveries also," said control room operations head Rende Steerenberg.

He added, however, that turning on the collider after the upgrade will be a tense exercise.

"It's not flipping a button," he told Reuters.

"This comes with a certain sense of tension, nervousness."

It will be very interesting indeed to see what, if anything, the collider discovers over the coming months.

Source: Reuters

Tags: Large Hadron Collider