CERN Wants Even Bigger Large Hadron Collider

50-mile monstrosity would study nature of gravity
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 10, 2012 10:18 AM CDT
CERN Wants Even Bigger Large Hadron Collider
In this May 31, 2007 file photo, a view of the LHC (large hadron collider) in its tunnel at CERN (European particle physics laboratory) is photographed, near Geneva, Switzerland.   (AP Photo/Keystone/Martial Trezzini, File)

The Large Hadron Collider just isn't large enough for CERN. The Geneva-based team that found the Higgs boson has set its sights on bigger and better things—emphasis on the bigger—and is now proposing replacing the current collider, which runs through 17 miles of tunnel, with a new one that's a full 50 miles long, the Daily Mail reports.

This new collider would study a host of new physics mysteries, including how gravity works on a particle level. "We have a wild new frontier of physics to explore," one physics professor involved in the decision said. "We can do some of that work by upgrading the LHC, but in the end it will need a more powerful machine." The bad news: the new collider likely wouldn't be finished until 2025. (More CERN stories.)

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