'Big Bang' machine fixed.

Summary: Engineers have fixed the "Big Bang" machine after an electrical fault led to it being shut-down in September last year.

Engineers have fixed the "Big Bang" machine after an electrical fault led to it being shut-down in September last year.

The last of 53 replacement magnets for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)- the largest scientific instrument ever built - has been lowered into the 16-mile tunnel straddling the Swiss-French border which houses the machine.

And scientists say they are back on track to re-start the particle accelerator in the autumn.

The LHC, based at the Swiss headquarters of the European nuclear research organisation Cern, was switched on in September last year amid a fanfare of publicity.

But just ten days later the electrical fault led to a catastrophic leak of helium - which is used to cool the machine's powerful magnets - causing a complete shut-down.

The LHC is designed to collide sub-atomic particles together at energies never before attained.

It will re-create the conditions moments after the Big Bang which gave birth to the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

A key aim of the LHC is to find the elusive Higgs Boson - nicknamed the "God Particle" - which is believed by theoretical physicists to explain the existence of mass.

There is also a chance of the machine creating tiny short-lived black holes, a fact which led to some wild speculation about the Earth being doomed by out-of-control experiments.

Repairing the collider has cost in the region of Au24 million, but this figure is a pittance when compared to the Au7 billion spent on the LHC and its construction.

Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.

Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.

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