The world largest particle collider broke the record for energy levels in a test run after a two year upgrade.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in a statement said, “Last night, protons collided in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the record-breaking energy of 13 TeV (teraelectronvolts) for the first time.”
LHC reached its highest energy for collision in 2012 and it was 8 TeV.
In April, LHC was started after a two year upgrade designed to experiment at 13 TeV. It has the potential to reach energy levels up to 14 TeV.
Experiments performed at the collider are aimed to understand how the universe came into existence by studying fundamental particles, the building blocks of matter and the forces that control them.
Earlier LHC has proved the existence of the God particle, Higgs Boson, which confers mass.
The discovery earned the 2013 Nobel Prize for two of the scientists who have theorized the existence of the Higgs back in 1964.
The collision at the giant lab, housed in a 17 mile or 27 kilometer tunnel, are a part of the ambitious roster of experiments, due to start next months.
CERN said, “These test collisions were to set up systems that protect the machine and detectors from particles that stray from the edges of the beam.”
LHC allows beams of protons travelling at a speed of light in opposite direction to collide.
The sub atomic particles created by the collision are scrutinized for novel properties and the forces that hold them together.
One tetraeclectronvolt is roughly equivalent to the energy of motion of a flying mosquito.
But within the LHC, the energy is squeezed into an extremely small space about a million, million times smaller than a mosquito. It is this intensity which causes the particles to be smashed apart.
