Scientists at CERN had said all along that they planned to activate the Larger Hadron Collider this summer. Now it looks like they'll slide in just before the official end of the season. The world's most powerful particle accelerator, aimed at unlocking secrets of the universe, will be launched on September 10 [Reuters].
"We're finishing a marathon with a sprint," said project leader Lyn Evans. "It's been a long haul, and we're all eager to get the LHC research program under way" [San Jose Mercury News].
Indeed, much still needs to happen in order to the meet the launch date. This weekend, physicists are testing the Super Proton Synchrotron, a separate accelerator built to produce the protons for the LHC's collisions. This particle injector must be timed perfectly as it fires high-energy protons into the main 17-mile-around ring. And now that the components have reached super-cool temperatures, CERN's engineers can ...
