Atom-smasher sets record energy levels: CERN
Tue Dec 1 00:47:36 EST 2009
Mon Nov 30 13:47:36 UTC 2009
GENEVA, Nov 30 AFP - The world's biggest atom-smasher has set a world record by accelerating to energy levels that had never been previously reached, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Monday.
"CERN's Large Hadron Collider has today become the world's highest energy particle accelerator, having accelerated its twin beams of protons to an energy of 1.18 TeV in the early hours of the morning," said the organisation.
A teraelectronvolt (TeV) is equivalent to the energy level of a flying mosquito, while CERN wants to ultimately achieve maximum power of 7.0 teraelectronvolts or trillion electronvolts.
The previous world record was set by a the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron collider in 2001, when it reached 0.98 TeV.
