Scientists will soon debut the blockbuster sequel to the so-called Big Bang Machine, which has already found the elusive Higgs Boson.
They're promising nearly twice the energy and far more violent particle crashes this time around - and hope to get a glimpse of dark matter.
After a two-year shutdown and upgrade, the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider is about to ramp up for its second three-year run.
Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, say if nature cooperates, the more powerful beam crashes will give them a peek into the unseen dark universe.
Beams should start running through the giant machine later this month, with the first high energy crashes probably coming in May, accelerator director Frederick Bordry said in a Thursday news conference in Geneva. A test beam ran through the collider last weekend, he said.
Scientists hope to see all sorts of new physics, including a first ever glimpse of dark matter, one of the chief focuses of the experiment.
'I want to see the first light in the dark universe,' CERN General Director Rolf Heuer said.
'If I see that, then nature is kind to me.'
Dark matter — and its cousin, dark energy — make up most of the universe, yet scientists haven't been able to see them yet, so researchers are looking for them in high-energy crashes, in orbit on a special experiment on the international space station, and in a deep underground mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment