Large Hadron Collider nears completion

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

by Staff Writers
Geneva, Switzerland (UPI) Jan 24, 2008
Installation of the final component of the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator is under way along the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.

When completed this summer, the LHC will be the world's largest and most complex scientific instrument. It is being constructed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world's largest particle physics laboratories.

Workers this week began lowering the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, detector into the underground facility. Muons are fundamental elements of matter.

The CMS detector, designed and built by more than 2,500 scientists and engineers from 39 nations, will help investigate the fundamental nature of particles and explore dark matter -- matter that can't be directly observed, but comprises most matter in the universe.

"This is a very exciting time for physics," said CMS spokesman Tejinder Virdee. "The LHC is poised to take us to a new level of understanding of our universe."

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New Discovery On Magnetic Reconnection To Impact Future Space Missions

Paris, France (ESA) Jan 24, 2008
ESA's Cluster mission has, for the first time, observed the extent of the region that triggers magnetic reconnection, and it is much larger than previously thought. This gives future space missions a much better chance of studying it. Space is filled with plasma (a gas composed of ions and electrons, globally neutral) and is threaded by magnetic fields. These magnetic fields store energy which can be released explosively, in a process called magnetic reconnection.

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