The $8 billion Large Hadron Collider, which is in actual a particle accelerator is slated to circulate the first beams in November 2007 at low energy in a test run, fell prey to a serious setback when a support structure for key magnets failed at some point in routine tests on 27 March.
The failed inner triplet magnets are used to compress the LHC’s counter-rotating proton beams and then collide them at four points along the 27 kilometers long tunnel. Fermilab’s Peter Limon said:
It wasn’t strong enough. People are disappointed, of course, but there are no recriminations. We have yet to determine if it’s damaged.
The glitch might may cause some sort of delay on the LHC construction but the team still hopes to open it in late 2007 as per plans.
Via: newscientisttech
