While Swiss and French residents living upstairs from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an underground, super-sized subatomic particle smasher, may have feared apocalyptic conditions after an equipment failure, the actual outcome of September’s faulty fuse is merely a sooty, expensive mess that will postpone future collisions until next summer.

A report released Friday by CERN details an incident that occurred on September 19th, just nine days after the launch of the first proton beam to successfully travel around the entire 27 km (17 mile) LHC ring, which is composed of more than 1600 super-cold, super-conducting magnets. These magnets, used to keep protons on course for collision, are kept at their frigid operating temperatures by liquid helium. This week’s report of the 9/19 incident points to a defective electrical connection between two magnets, which spurred a helium leak that damaged multiple magnets and left vacuum pipes dirtied with soot and insulation.

While the sooty vacuum pipes can remain in place for cleaning (the plan: vacuuming the vacuums), 53 giant magnets and various other LHC components must now be brought up to ground level to be cleaned or replaced.  After repair, the magnets need to be reinstalled, brought back down to near absolute zero temperatures, and tested before the LHC can be considered up and running again. Engineers must also revamp the ventilation system adding more pressure release valves across the entire LHC in order to minimize future damage from such accidents. This plan, detailed in Fridays report, is slated for completion by the end of June 2009.

The LHC was built on hopes that the experiments run inside the giant instrument could revolutionize the field of particle physics. By smashing protons together at high speeds and cold temperatures, scientists seek to identify hidden subatomic particles that can help to explain how most of the universe has acquired its mass. While the overall mission and lofty goals for the LHC remain the same, CERN’s scientists may have to scale back and run lower energy (and thus lower excitement) experiments in order to decrease the risk of blowing electrical fuses that can render the instrument nonfunctional. Thus, scientists and the particle loving public must now patiently endure the LHC shutdown before the secrets of the universe can be revealed.

photo credit: National Geographic

Note: The link to “LHC cameras” is a joke