Mysteries of universe at focus of giant project

By Robert Evans (Reuters.com)

GENEVA (Reuters) – Scientists at a vast underground Swiss laboratory will launch an experiment on Wednesday to re-enact the “Big Bang” on a small scale to explain the origins of the universe and how it came to harbor life.

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, will use giant magnets housed in cathedral-size caverns to fire beams of energy particles around a 27-km (17-mile) tunnel where they will smash together near the speed of light. Computers will analyze particles given off for clues to what happened at the Big Bang.

Scientists at the CERN laboratory, near the foothills of the Jura mountains, will pursue long elusive concepts such as “dark matter,” “dark energy”, extra dimensions and, most of all, the “Higgs Boson” believed to have made it all possible.

more here: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL846768920080909