Engineering news
A new energy record for smashing together sub-atomic particles has been set by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), marking a turning point for the team operating the world's biggest scientific instrument.
Scientists achieved test collisions between protons at 13 tera-electron volts (TeV) for the first time. The stage is now set for the first data to be collected from collisions within the LHC's giant detectors next month.
Two beams of particles travelling just below the speed of light flew in opposite directions through 27km (16.7 miles) of circular underground tunnels on the Swiss-French border.
However, the beam energy has only now been ramped up to its operating level of 13 TeV, almost twice the power used to uncover the Higgs boson two years ago.
With the ability to tap into higher energy, the scientists hope to explore realms of "new physics" that could yield evidence of hidden extra dimensions and dark matter.
Protons race around the LHC beam tunnels at just three metres per second below the speed of light. The energy released when they collide together is used to spark the creation of new particles.
Upping the energy levels at the LHC increases the chances of some of it being converted to previously undetected, heavier particles - possibly including dark matter.
The particle collisions take place in four detectors arranged around the beam ring known as Atlas, CMS, Alice and LHCb.
At an earlier briefing at Cern, the European organisation for nuclear research in Geneva, Atlas team leader Professor David Charlton, from the University of Birmingham, said: "We're heading for unexplored territory. It's going to be a new era for science."
LHC scientists also hope to create more and possibly different strains of Higgs boson, investigate antimatter, and test the theory of "supersymmetry" which predicts that every known particle has a more massive hidden partner.
Supersymmetry seeks to fill gaps in the "Standard Model", the all-encompassing blueprint of particles and forces in the universe that has been in place since the 1970s.
The £3.74 billion LHC was re-started after a two-year upgrade in April.