The world's most powerful atom-smasher ever
built has been turned on for its second research
run.
Cern's Large Hadron Collider was fired up
after a two year upgrade as it continues to
explore new frontiers in physics.
The collider is already smashing proton beams
together at much higher energies than were
achieved in its first run.
Before collisions occurred at 8 trillion electron
volts, whereas it's now happening at 13 trillion.
"It means that we can probe to higher
energies to produce higher mass particles
and also to shorter distances than we'd been
able to before. So we're taking a step forward
in the sensitivity to possible new physics.
But what it is it and what does it actually
do?
Situated 100m beneath the Franco-Swiss border,
the machine is housed on a 17 mile circular
track.
Beams of high energy are fired around these
tunnels - just below the speed of light.
They are then directed to crash into each
other, revealing their internal structures,
and releasing energy that creates new particles.
The process is thought to be similar to the
Big Bang that scientists say created our universe
But what exactly are scientists looking for
in this sub atomic car crash?
The data caught is only available for a very
short time - but they hope to identify exotic
new particles in the wreckage.
Huge detectors have been stationed at points
where the beams slam into each other which
record the information.
The first research experiment proved the existence of the
Higgs Boson - known as the God particle- which
is responsible for giving other particles
mass.
This time round though, scientists are aiming
a little higher - they hope to find evidence
of hidden extra dimensions and dark matter.
While everything around us is described as
MATTER -anything that has mass and takes up space
Dark matter is much harder to detect - as
it interacts differently- and is thought to
keep galaxies intact. But it has never actually
been observed as it doesn't absorb, reflect
or omit light.
It's hoped the work conducted with the collider,
which will now produce up to ten times more
data, will provide the first clues as to what
this massive energy is...
- and hopefully we'll start getting more answers
as to how our universe was created.
