CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is set to be switched back on in March — hoping that a £97 million upgrade could push it to even greater discoveries, after it found the “God particle” in 2012.
The second three year run of the huge atom smasher will begin in March 2015. The Large Hadron Collider has been switched off since its last run finished in 2012.
The world’s largest particle collider has been undergoing a £97 million upgrade since then, as scientists comb through the data found during the last run.
It is being cooled back down ready for the switch on, and is almost at its operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero, or about minus 271.25 degrees Celsius. Scientists are also testing out the equipment and earlier in December activated one of the magnets required to fire atoms around the collider.
Scientists are now gearing up to turn both on at once, in 2015. That will produce collisions of a scale never achieved by any accelerator in the past, equivalent with 154 tons of TNT.
The extra power will allow the CERN’s numerous experiments to look into deep mysteries of the universe, such as dark matter.
The Large Hadron Collider was used in 2012 to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson, known as the God particle, which explains the very beginning of the universe. (Andrew Griffin – The Independent)
Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/large-hadron-collider-ready-to-delve-even-deeper-than-god-particle-as-it-switches-back-on-at-double-power-9948724.html
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