Collider cooled to deep space temps

The collider, or LHC, is the world's largest particle accelerator and is kept in a tunnel 17-miles long and 570-feet wide beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.
Just days after beginning operation last year, the LHC was shut down for repairs when a ton of liquid helium leaked from a magnet into the collider's tunnel.

The helium cools giant magnets to minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit, enabling the magnets to bend proton beams that scientists hope will provide data on how the
universe was formed, the BBC reported Friday.

When the collider is restarted, the beams should smash into each other, creating new particles that provide insight into the formation of the universe right after the so-called Big bang, said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European
Organization for Nuclear Research, based in Geneva.

"It's a bit like firing knitting needles from across the Atlantic and getting them to collide half way," Gillies told the BBC.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.