The world’s largest atom smasher has been re-started again after more than a year of repairs.

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research has been taking time with the sophisticated equipment, the most powerful of its kind in the world. James Gillies, spokesperson for CERN said: “We used all sorts of new techniques that weren’t available during the period of construction of the Collider. We have been working hard to make sure it works, fortunately for us it does.” The Large Hadron Collider started up September last year, but despite a successful launch, engineers were forced to switch it off after just nine days due to an accident. Now the Collider, which is housed in a 27 kilometre long tunnel, 100 metres beneath the French-Swiss border, will smash together beams of protons in an attempt to shed light on the nature of the Universe.More about: Research, Switzerland

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