* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Large Hadron Collider

Blobrana · L

The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections.
Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies.
Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine across the ocean.
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Blobrana · L

LHC restart pushed back again
The flagship particle accelerator at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) is to be restarted in October as opposed to September.

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Blobrana · L

The LHC's anti-clockwise beam transfer system was tested on 6 and 7 June. Particle bunches were sent from the SPS through the transfer line towards the LHC where it intersects just before the LHCb cavern.
Part of the LHCb detector was turned on during the beam test, and the teams managed to catch a glimpse of the secondary particles produced when the beam hits the 'beam stopper'.

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Blobrana · L

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will start smashing its first particles in October and run through the winter as a rival US facility closes in on the Higgs boson "God particle".
Atom-smashers are normally shut down to avoid incurring peak electricity charges and the decision to keep the £4 billion accelerator, the worlds largest and most powerful scientific instrument, going will cost around £13 million in additional running costs.

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Blobrana · L

The last of 53 replacement magnets for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been lowered into the 16-mile tunnel straddling the Swiss-French border.

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Blobrana · L

The 39th and final repaired dipole magnet was lowered into Sector 3-4 and installed on Thursday 16 April. This is the last of the LHC's easily recognisable 15-metre-long blue superconducting dipoles required for the 3-4 repair. Only two more Short Straight Sections (SSS) remain to be installed in 3-4.

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Blobrana · L

Additional safety features being added to the world's largest atom smasher will postpone its startup until the end of September, a year after the $10 billion machine was sidelined by a simple electrical fault, the operator said Tuesday.
The cost of the repairs and added safety features has yet to be determined, but it will be covered by the regular budget of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, spokeswoman Christine Sutton said.

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Blobrana · L

You know black holes, right? Those fearsome cosmic quicksand pits that swallow everything, even light?
They're the unhappy consequence of exhausted stars that collapse in on themselves. The resulting maw seethes with gravity so powerful it can, as astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson writes in "Death by Black Hole," rip apart anything that strays too close, "atom by atom."
Given such a nasty disposition, why would scientists want to try to create black holes here on Earth? And not just one, but lots of them - miniature black holes belched out as often as once per second like exploding popcorn kernels by the just-activated Large Hadron Collider, an underground machine so colossal it straddles two countries, Switzerland and France?

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Blobrana · L

An official investigation into the accident at the Large Hadron Collider has recommended that an early warning system be installed.
This system would detect the early stages of a helium leak, following an incident that has shut down the LHC until June 2009.

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