Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Remember the world’s largest man-made contraption that in 2012 proved the existence of the Higgs boson, netting its seekers a well deserved Nobel prize in the process? Well, after two years of sitting unused for upgrading purposes, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is finally back in business, ready to serve  our insatiable curiosity about the Cosmos.

The 27-kilometer ring-shaped tunnel that sits underground is commanded from CERN, the particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland. Now in charge of writing the next chapter in LHC’s mission to unlock the mysteries of the Universe, engineers at CERN will rise the energy throughput to l 14 teraelectronvolts (TeV) with the hope that the accelerator will produce the first clear evidence for supersymmetry.

If it sounds like a fancy term for something that’s actually very simple in reality, that’s because it is. Supersymmetry predicts twin particles for each particle in the Standard Model, in what can be considered a mere extension of what we know today about matter and how it behaves in the Universe. If found, the new paragon would also resolve problems related to incorporating the now-discovered Higgs boson. The new collisions will also enable more-precise study of the Higgs field itself.

The new developments are described at length in Nature magazine, complete with a neat infographic about the amazing machine. Have a great rest of the weekend!