By Science News
![ATLAS is one of the massive laboratories surrounding the huge underground tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider. Protons speeding through the tunnel will collide here, and ATLAS will detect what happens.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/8297.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1)
On and off for the LHC
Protons take trip around the accelerator
One short trip for a proton, one not-so-giant step for mankind. On September 10, scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, successfully steered the first beam of protons around the accelerator’s 27-kilometer track. But just nine days after the initial success, a faulty electrical connection led to a helium leak (SN Online: 9/23/08). The setback, combined with the LHC’s scheduled winter shutdown to save fuel costs, means that scientists won’t attempt the first proton collisions until summer 2009 (SN Online: 12/5/08)