June restart for Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's biggest particle acclerator, could be back in action by the summer.

Soon after the LHC was switched on in September last year, it suffered a catastrophic malfunction when super-cold helium leaked into the system.

Read Web User's guide to the Large Hadron Collider.

Many of the magnets used to accelerate the particles needed to be repaired as a result, with the damage costing around £20m to repair.

Lyn Evans, project leader at the LHC said: "We have a lot of work to do over the coming months, but we now have the roadmap, the time and the competence necessary to be ready for physics by summer."

Described as the world's largest physics experiment, the scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), aim to prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson, also called the 'God Particle', which is the only elementary particle that has never been observed by science.

The LHC is situated on the Franco-Swiss border at a depth ranging between 50 and 175 metres below the ground. It is in a circular tunnel some 17 miles long.

www.cern.ch