The world's most ambitious particle collider — which scientists hope could reveal what matter is made of — might not be fully functional until next year, months after its scheduled startup date, officials at the European Organization for Nuclear Research say.Scientists have been scrambling to redesign a key U.S.-built part of the collider — located in a tunnel deep beneath the Swiss and French countryside outside Geneva — that broke "with a loud bang and a cloud of dust" during a high-pressure test for the collider last month.
Officials at the organization, known by the French initials CERN, said on Thursday that the possible delays are the result of the magnet failure and cooling processes that have been slower than expected for the 17-mile tunnel.
The aim of the CERN experiment is to make subatomic particles — in this case protons — travel at nearly the speed of light until they collide, emitting a shower of even smaller particles that will reveal mysteries about the makeup of matter.
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