'God particle' lab to build larger collider to solve universe’s mysteries

After discovering the Higgs Boson this summer, the team at Cern is now planning for even larger hadron collider to solve the mysteries of the universe.

After discovering the Higgs Boson this summer, the team at Cern is now planning for even larger hadron collider to solve the mysteries of the universe.

The Geneva-based team are proposing a new underground accelerator with a circumference of 50miles (80kms) - three times the size of the current one under Geneva - which will be used to solve mystery of how gravity interacts on a molecular level.

It is still not clear how gravity can operate both at the particle level, and at the level of planets, stars and solar systems.

Though any new collider is unlikely to be built until 2025, the Cern team wish to get a headstart, concerned by the 25-year wait it took between proposing the first collider, and its completion in 2008.

Another option is to tear down the colliders in the current tunnel, which runs in a 27km (17miles) circular track around 150m underground near Lake Geneva, and build more sensitive equipment in its place.

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Either scheme would cost billions of dollars, which would be shared between Cern’s 20 member states.

Now a team of 18 scientists are drawing up a roadmap for Cern, including designs for new machines.

“The new machine could be installed in the LHC tunnel. Alternatively, it could be installed in a new, longer tunnel, using a tunnel circumference of 80km,” the Daily Mail quoted their paper as saying.

The suggestions will be discussed at a European Strategy Preparatory Group in Krakow in Poland this week.