CERN’s Large Hadron Collider broke the record previously held by Fermilab’s Tevatron when it sent beams of particles at 1.18 trillion electron volts around the machine’s ring early this morning. The previous record was .98 TeV, set in 2001.
The next step in reaching even higher energy levels needed for scientific experiments will be to collide the proton beams at about 1.2 TeV before the end of the year. CERN’s goal is to have the machine running at 3.5 TeV for the first half of next year. The LHC’s 2,000 superconducting magnets will have to be prepared in order to increase the energy safely.
