Subatomic Exploration has Begun

After 16 years and over $10 billion, the worlds largest physics machine, the Large Hadron Collider is finally up and running, following a stressful morning and two false starts, due to electrical failures. Once running, the collider sped protons to more than 99% of the speed of light. Energy levels soared with a record-high 3.5 trillion electron volts raced around a 17-mile magnetic track. A NY Times article described the scene:

They crashed together inside apartment-building-size detectors designed to capture every evanescent flash and fragment from microscopic fireballs thought to hold insights into the beginning of the universe.

For the scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, some of their top goals include finding the identity of the dark matter that seems to shape the cosmos.