Scientists at CERN restart the Large Hadron Collider

Scientist at Geneva-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) have managed to restart the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) designed to recreate the Big Bang of the universe, after more than a year of repairs, the organisation said yesterday.

This news comes after the machine was handed over for operation on Wednesday morning, where a clockwise circulating beam was established the following day. This will make an important milestone on the road towards first physics at the LHC, expected in 2010.

"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said CERN director-general Rolf Heuer. "We've still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we're well on the way."

The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, intended to collide opposing particle beams of either protons at very high energy. It is expected that it will address the most fundamental questions of physics, which seem to block further progress in understanding the deepest laws of nature.

The LHC, which was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, lies in a tunnel 27 km in circumference, as much as 175 metres beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.

It is funded by and built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.