BEIJING — A Chinese astronaut orbiting the earth lifted himself out of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft Saturday afternoon and performed the nation’s first spacewalk, another milestone in China’s space program.
Zhai Zhigang pulled himself out of the orbital module about 4:40 p.m. Beijing time, latched himself to a handrail with two safety cords and then waved to a national audience during a live broadcast of the country’s third space mission with an astronaut.
“I am here greeting the Chinese people and the people of the world,” Mr. Zhai said, waving to a camera attached to the module.
The feat was part of China’s effort to establish a space station by 2020 and eventually to land on the moon.
For the Chinese government, which devotes extensive media coverage to its space missions with astronauts, the achievement was another step toward establishing the country as an economic and technological superpower.
President Hu Jintao was in the space command center in Beijing on Saturday.
After pulling himself fully out of the orbital module and tethering himself to the safety cords, Mr. Zhai waved a small Chinese flag, to the cheers of technicians in the central command center in Beijing.
Another astronaut, Liu Boming, briefly poked his head and part of his body out of the module, becoming the second Chinese astronaut to touch outer space, while the third astronaut, Jing Haipeng, stayed behind in the re-entry module, which will take them back to earth, in case of an emergency.
About two hours later, the astronauts released a small monitoring satellite.
This was the country’s third human space mission in five years. Before China, only the United States and the Soviet Union, and later Russia, had sent people into space, though astronauts from other countries have joined the missions.
By DAVID BARBOZA
Saturday, September 27, 2008
China Launches Spacewalk Mission
SHANGHAI — The Chinese Shenzhou VII spacecraft blasted off at 9:07 p.m. Thursday, carrying three Chinese astronauts into space on this country’s third manned space mission in five years.
The three-day mission is expected to include the country’s first attempt at a spacewalk.
The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in recent years building up a space program that it hopes will help China establish a space station by 2020 and eventually will put a man on the moon, accomplishments that would certainly bring the country international prestige.
The launching of Shenzhou VII from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, which is in western China, was shown live on state television.
At a ceremony before the launching, President Hu Jintao praised the space project’s effort. “You will definitely accomplish this glorious and sacred mission,” he told the astronauts before the launching. “The motherland and the people are looking forward to your triumphant return.”
China sent into space three experienced fighter pilots, all of them 42-year-old men. One is expected to walk in space for 30 minutes on Friday or Saturday, according to the state media.
The three taikonauts — the Chinese term for astronauts — plan to run tests in space and launch a small satellite monitoring station. They are carrying traditional Chinese medicine on board, in case of sickness, and their diet includes shredded pork sautéed with garlic and grilled beef with spicy sauce.
One astronaut is wearing what the state-run news media has dubbed “the most complicated, advanced and expensive suit in the world,” a $4.4 million space suit designed and produced in China. The spacecraft was launched by what the Chinese space agency calls the Long March II-F carrier rocket, which took the spacecraft into a low orbit, about 210 miles above Earth. The mission, which is being covered extensively in the Chinese media, is another milestone for a country that got a late start in space exploration but is now aggressively launching commercial satellites, putting humans in space and even shooting down aging satellites.
“They have joined a very exclusive club; only the U.S. and Russians are members,” said Roger D. Launius, a senior curator and expert on space history at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, referring generally to China’s space program. “It’s a great start, even though it’s nowhere near what the Russians and the U.S. have accomplished with space flight.”
Russia and the United States conducted their first spacewalks in 1965, and in 1969 the United States became the first country to put a person on the moon.
But Michael D. Griffin, the administrator of NASA, has repeatedly warned that despite the head start by other nations, the Chinese program is moving swiftly and could overtake American efforts to return to the moon by 2020. In testimony to the Senate last year, Mr. Griffin said it was likely that “China will be able to put people on the Moon before we will be able to get back.” He added: “I admire what they have done, but I am concerned that it will leave the United States in its wake.”
The Chinese government also hopes the national space program will aid the nation economically by helping to create technological breakthroughs that may someday be applied to computers or other digital equipment.
India and Japan are now aggressively developing their own space programs, creating some competition in Asia for space flight, and the Europeans have joined forces to explore space.
But China says its space program is speeding along, often with Chinese technology, helping establish the country as a technological power and bringing another dose of pride to the nation after the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.
Because spaceflight requires large booster rockets and other sophisticated technology that often has military applications, national space programs are often veiled in secrecy, and cooperation among nations is complicated.
Indeed, on Wednesday, the F.B.I. arrested a Chinese-born physicist in Newport News, Va., on charges of illegally exporting space launching technical data and services to China beginning in January 2003. The physicist, Shu Quan-Sheng, 68, was born in China but was a naturalized American citizen. He has a doctorate in physics.
Mr. Shu was also accused of offering bribes to Chinese government officials in exchange for a business contract, according to an F.B.I. statement.
The three Chinese astronauts before the launching on Thursday. The Chinese government hopes the space program can help establish a space station and eventually put a person on the moon.
By DAVID BARBOZA
The three-day mission is expected to include the country’s first attempt at a spacewalk.
The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in recent years building up a space program that it hopes will help China establish a space station by 2020 and eventually will put a man on the moon, accomplishments that would certainly bring the country international prestige.
The launching of Shenzhou VII from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, which is in western China, was shown live on state television.
At a ceremony before the launching, President Hu Jintao praised the space project’s effort. “You will definitely accomplish this glorious and sacred mission,” he told the astronauts before the launching. “The motherland and the people are looking forward to your triumphant return.”
China sent into space three experienced fighter pilots, all of them 42-year-old men. One is expected to walk in space for 30 minutes on Friday or Saturday, according to the state media.
The three taikonauts — the Chinese term for astronauts — plan to run tests in space and launch a small satellite monitoring station. They are carrying traditional Chinese medicine on board, in case of sickness, and their diet includes shredded pork sautéed with garlic and grilled beef with spicy sauce.
One astronaut is wearing what the state-run news media has dubbed “the most complicated, advanced and expensive suit in the world,” a $4.4 million space suit designed and produced in China. The spacecraft was launched by what the Chinese space agency calls the Long March II-F carrier rocket, which took the spacecraft into a low orbit, about 210 miles above Earth. The mission, which is being covered extensively in the Chinese media, is another milestone for a country that got a late start in space exploration but is now aggressively launching commercial satellites, putting humans in space and even shooting down aging satellites.
“They have joined a very exclusive club; only the U.S. and Russians are members,” said Roger D. Launius, a senior curator and expert on space history at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, referring generally to China’s space program. “It’s a great start, even though it’s nowhere near what the Russians and the U.S. have accomplished with space flight.”
Russia and the United States conducted their first spacewalks in 1965, and in 1969 the United States became the first country to put a person on the moon.
But Michael D. Griffin, the administrator of NASA, has repeatedly warned that despite the head start by other nations, the Chinese program is moving swiftly and could overtake American efforts to return to the moon by 2020. In testimony to the Senate last year, Mr. Griffin said it was likely that “China will be able to put people on the Moon before we will be able to get back.” He added: “I admire what they have done, but I am concerned that it will leave the United States in its wake.”
The Chinese government also hopes the national space program will aid the nation economically by helping to create technological breakthroughs that may someday be applied to computers or other digital equipment.
India and Japan are now aggressively developing their own space programs, creating some competition in Asia for space flight, and the Europeans have joined forces to explore space.
But China says its space program is speeding along, often with Chinese technology, helping establish the country as a technological power and bringing another dose of pride to the nation after the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.
Because spaceflight requires large booster rockets and other sophisticated technology that often has military applications, national space programs are often veiled in secrecy, and cooperation among nations is complicated.
Indeed, on Wednesday, the F.B.I. arrested a Chinese-born physicist in Newport News, Va., on charges of illegally exporting space launching technical data and services to China beginning in January 2003. The physicist, Shu Quan-Sheng, 68, was born in China but was a naturalized American citizen. He has a doctorate in physics.
Mr. Shu was also accused of offering bribes to Chinese government officials in exchange for a business contract, according to an F.B.I. statement.
The three Chinese astronauts before the launching on Thursday. The Chinese government hopes the space program can help establish a space station and eventually put a person on the moon.
By DAVID BARBOZA
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Stonehenge mystery finally revealed?
IT has been variously described as a giant calendar, a place of worship and a royal burial ground.
But now, more than 4000 years after its first stones were dragged from the Welsh mountains to the Salisbury plains, Stonehenge may finally have given up its secret.
Pictures: Rock stars party at Stonehenge
Pictures: Weird wonders of the world
Research suggests the eerie monument was a neolithic Lourdes to which the sick and injured travelled from far and wide to be healed by its magical powers.
The first excavation of Stonehenge for almost 50 years has revealed the soil to be littered with fragments from its smaller bluestones – thought to have been chipped off as lucky charms.
As well, a disproportionate number of people buried in nearby tombs show signs of serious illness and many were not born in the area.
Taken together, the clues point to Stonehenge being the casualty department of southern England.
The study, by Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University and Proessor Geoffrey Wainwright of the Society of Antiquaries of London, shows that bluestone chippings greatly outnumber those from the massive Sarsen stones that form the towering trilithon structures of Stonehenge.
What is more, most of the fragments had been deliberately chipped off the stones, which originated 250km away in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire.
"It could be that people were flaking off pieces of bluestone in order to create little bits to take away… as lucky amulets," said Professor Wainwright.
It is unclear why the stones, which are blue-green with white spots, were so revered. However, the idea of the Preseli Hills' healing powers lingers to this day, with spring water from the area said to ease arthritis and other conditions.
Professor Darvill said: "Taking those pieces to become talismans, lucky charms, to be used in the healing process, is very important. Their meaning and importance to prehistoric people was sufficiently powerful to warrant the investment of time, effort and resources to move the bluestones from the Preseli Hills to the Wessex Downs."
The professors said that "an abnormal number" of bodies entombed nearby showed signs of severe illness or injury.
And analysis of teeth recovered from graves showed that about half belonged to people not native to the area.
Prof Darvill said Stonehenge would attract not only people who were unwell but people who were capable of healing them.
The professors believe the rest of the monument, including the Sarsen stones, which came from Marlborough 40km away, grew up around the bluestones healing centre.
Prof Darvill said: "It could have been a temple at the same time as it was a healing centre, just as Lourdes is still a religious centre."
They added, however, that it was likely the monument had more than one purpose.
Source: Daily Mail
But now, more than 4000 years after its first stones were dragged from the Welsh mountains to the Salisbury plains, Stonehenge may finally have given up its secret.
Pictures: Rock stars party at Stonehenge
Pictures: Weird wonders of the world
Research suggests the eerie monument was a neolithic Lourdes to which the sick and injured travelled from far and wide to be healed by its magical powers.
The first excavation of Stonehenge for almost 50 years has revealed the soil to be littered with fragments from its smaller bluestones – thought to have been chipped off as lucky charms.
As well, a disproportionate number of people buried in nearby tombs show signs of serious illness and many were not born in the area.
Taken together, the clues point to Stonehenge being the casualty department of southern England.
The study, by Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University and Proessor Geoffrey Wainwright of the Society of Antiquaries of London, shows that bluestone chippings greatly outnumber those from the massive Sarsen stones that form the towering trilithon structures of Stonehenge.
What is more, most of the fragments had been deliberately chipped off the stones, which originated 250km away in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire.
"It could be that people were flaking off pieces of bluestone in order to create little bits to take away… as lucky amulets," said Professor Wainwright.
It is unclear why the stones, which are blue-green with white spots, were so revered. However, the idea of the Preseli Hills' healing powers lingers to this day, with spring water from the area said to ease arthritis and other conditions.
Professor Darvill said: "Taking those pieces to become talismans, lucky charms, to be used in the healing process, is very important. Their meaning and importance to prehistoric people was sufficiently powerful to warrant the investment of time, effort and resources to move the bluestones from the Preseli Hills to the Wessex Downs."
The professors said that "an abnormal number" of bodies entombed nearby showed signs of severe illness or injury.
And analysis of teeth recovered from graves showed that about half belonged to people not native to the area.
Prof Darvill said Stonehenge would attract not only people who were unwell but people who were capable of healing them.
The professors believe the rest of the monument, including the Sarsen stones, which came from Marlborough 40km away, grew up around the bluestones healing centre.
Prof Darvill said: "It could have been a temple at the same time as it was a healing centre, just as Lourdes is still a religious centre."
They added, however, that it was likely the monument had more than one purpose.
Source: Daily Mail
A New Contender For Earth's Oldest Rock
All Things Considered, September 25, 2008 · When geologist Jonathan O'Neil goes walking on some flat, exposed bedrock on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in Quebec, he believes that he may be walking on the world's oldest rocks.
"When you actually walk on the rock, it's kind of special just to think, well, I could walk here 4.3 billion years ago and I probably would have walked on the same rocks," says O'Neil, a Ph.D. student at McGill University in Montreal.
The Earth is only around 4.6 billion years old. Scientists believe it started as a big, hot blob of molten metal and rock, and then began to cool and form a crust. Scientists would love to have samples of rock from those early days. But they're hard to find in part because the planet's surface is constantly changing.
Scientists have found isolated mineral grains called zircons that date back to 4.36 billion years ago, but the rock that was originally around these grains has eroded away. So until now, the oldest-known rock has been the Acasta Gneiss, an outcropping in Canada's Northwest Territories that's thought to be 4.03 billion years old. But O'Neil and his colleagues think their rock could be even more ancient.
Some scientists will question the claim, says O'Neil. "Of course there's going to be controversy," he says. "I'm expecting that."
In the past, scientists have established the age of ancient rocks by looking at the composition of zircons. But O'Neil says his rock didn't have any of those tiny mineral grains. So he and his colleagues used a technique previously used to establish the age of meteorites that looks at the rare elements neodymium and samarium. In their study in the journal Science, they concluded that the rocks could have formed 250 million years before any previously discovered rocks.
"The jury is still out," says Jeff Vervoort, a geologist with Washington State University in Pullman. "Truly, the data are equivocal."
He says the rocks themselves may be 4.28 billion years old, or they could be the product of a two-stage process: For example, they may be younger rocks that formed after a section of early crust separated from the underlying mantle layer at that earlier time.
Still, Vervoort says, "this is an exciting paper with some very nice data on some extremely interesting old rocks. This paper will undoubtedly spur interest in further work in this area, looking for additional evidence from Earth's earliest history."
John Valley, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says scientists have long expected to find rocks from this time period. "We've always been puzzled by our failure to find them. So the question then arises: Were the earliest rocks completely destroyed by some unusual process? Or do these early relics really exist and we just don't know how to recognize them?"
He says the method used in this study does look like it could be helpful for identifying sections of the Earth's early crust.
"Possibly, there are even rocks as old as 4.3 billion years," Valley says. "And if that's correct, then they may hold the key to timeless questions about the evolution of the Earth and possibly even the emergence of life."
He says that because life can exist only under certain conditions, finding the earliest rocks should help geologists understand when exactly the Earth became friendly enough for life to evolve.
by Nell Greenfieldboyce
"When you actually walk on the rock, it's kind of special just to think, well, I could walk here 4.3 billion years ago and I probably would have walked on the same rocks," says O'Neil, a Ph.D. student at McGill University in Montreal.
The Earth is only around 4.6 billion years old. Scientists believe it started as a big, hot blob of molten metal and rock, and then began to cool and form a crust. Scientists would love to have samples of rock from those early days. But they're hard to find in part because the planet's surface is constantly changing.
Scientists have found isolated mineral grains called zircons that date back to 4.36 billion years ago, but the rock that was originally around these grains has eroded away. So until now, the oldest-known rock has been the Acasta Gneiss, an outcropping in Canada's Northwest Territories that's thought to be 4.03 billion years old. But O'Neil and his colleagues think their rock could be even more ancient.
Some scientists will question the claim, says O'Neil. "Of course there's going to be controversy," he says. "I'm expecting that."
In the past, scientists have established the age of ancient rocks by looking at the composition of zircons. But O'Neil says his rock didn't have any of those tiny mineral grains. So he and his colleagues used a technique previously used to establish the age of meteorites that looks at the rare elements neodymium and samarium. In their study in the journal Science, they concluded that the rocks could have formed 250 million years before any previously discovered rocks.
"The jury is still out," says Jeff Vervoort, a geologist with Washington State University in Pullman. "Truly, the data are equivocal."
He says the rocks themselves may be 4.28 billion years old, or they could be the product of a two-stage process: For example, they may be younger rocks that formed after a section of early crust separated from the underlying mantle layer at that earlier time.
Still, Vervoort says, "this is an exciting paper with some very nice data on some extremely interesting old rocks. This paper will undoubtedly spur interest in further work in this area, looking for additional evidence from Earth's earliest history."
John Valley, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says scientists have long expected to find rocks from this time period. "We've always been puzzled by our failure to find them. So the question then arises: Were the earliest rocks completely destroyed by some unusual process? Or do these early relics really exist and we just don't know how to recognize them?"
He says the method used in this study does look like it could be helpful for identifying sections of the Earth's early crust.
"Possibly, there are even rocks as old as 4.3 billion years," Valley says. "And if that's correct, then they may hold the key to timeless questions about the evolution of the Earth and possibly even the emergence of life."
He says that because life can exist only under certain conditions, finding the earliest rocks should help geologists understand when exactly the Earth became friendly enough for life to evolve.
by Nell Greenfieldboyce
Friday, September 19, 2008
Transformer breaks on world's largest atom smasher
GENEVA - With 30-tone to transform that cools the world' S largest particle collider malfunctioned, sustained pressure physicists to stop using the atom smasher just has day after launching it to great brass band, the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Thursday.
The faulty to transform has been replaced and the boxing ring in the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French to border has been cooled back down to near absolute zero - but washout 459.67 dismantle Fahrenheit - the most efficient operating temperature, said has statement by CERN, ace the organization is known. When to transform malfunctioned, operating temperatures pink from below 2 Kelvin to 4.5 Kelvin - extraordinarily cold by most standard, normal goal warmer than the operating temperature.
Broad The High-energy particle Collider was launched Sept. 10, when scientists circled has beam off protons in has clockwise direction At the speed off light. That was followed by has counterclockwise beam.
“Several hundred orbits” were made, said the statement.
One the evening off Sept. 11, scientists were whitebait to control the counterclockwise beam with equipment that keeps the protons bunched tightly and ready for collisions before to transform failed and the system was shut down, the statement said.
Now that to transform has been replaced and the equipment rechilled, has similar attempt is expected shortly to tighten the clockwise beam and prepares experiments in coming weeks, it said.
Broad The High-energy particle Collider is designed to collide protons in the beams so that they shatter and reveal more butt the makeup off matter and the universe.
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
The faulty to transform has been replaced and the boxing ring in the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French to border has been cooled back down to near absolute zero - but washout 459.67 dismantle Fahrenheit - the most efficient operating temperature, said has statement by CERN, ace the organization is known. When to transform malfunctioned, operating temperatures pink from below 2 Kelvin to 4.5 Kelvin - extraordinarily cold by most standard, normal goal warmer than the operating temperature.
Broad The High-energy particle Collider was launched Sept. 10, when scientists circled has beam off protons in has clockwise direction At the speed off light. That was followed by has counterclockwise beam.
“Several hundred orbits” were made, said the statement.
One the evening off Sept. 11, scientists were whitebait to control the counterclockwise beam with equipment that keeps the protons bunched tightly and ready for collisions before to transform failed and the system was shut down, the statement said.
Now that to transform has been replaced and the equipment rechilled, has similar attempt is expected shortly to tighten the clockwise beam and prepares experiments in coming weeks, it said.
Broad The High-energy particle Collider is designed to collide protons in the beams so that they shatter and reveal more butt the makeup off matter and the universe.
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Protons and Champagne Mix as New Particle Collider Is Revved Up
BATAVIA, Ill. — Science rode a beam of subatomic particles and a river of Champagne into the future on Wednesday.
After 14 years of labor, scientists at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva successfully activated the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest, most powerful particle collider and, at $8 billion, the most expensive scientific experiment to date.
At 4:28 a.m., Eastern time, the scientists announced that a beam of protons had completed its first circuit around the collider’s 17-mile-long racetrack, 300 feet underneath the Swiss-French border. They then sent the beam around several more times.
“It’s a fantastic moment,” said Lyn Evans, who has been the project director of the collider since its inception in 1994. “We can now look forward to a new era of understanding about the origins and evolution of the universe.”
Eventually, the collider is expected to accelerate protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts and then smash them together, recreating conditions in the primordial fireball only a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Scientists hope the machine will be a sort of Hubble Space Telescope of inner space, allowing them to detect new subatomic particles and forces of nature.
An ocean away from Geneva, the new collider’s activation was watched with rueful excitement here at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, which has had the reigning particle collider.
Several dozen physicists, students and onlookers, and three local mayors gathered overnight to watch the dawn of a new high-energy physics. They applauded each milestone as the scientists methodically steered the protons on their course at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Many of them, including the lab’s director, Pier Oddone, were wearing pajamas or bathrobes or even nightcaps bearing Fermilab “pajama party” patches on them.
Outside, a half moon was hanging low in a cloudy sky, a reminder that the universe was beautiful and mysterious and that another small step into that mystery was about to be taken.
Dr. Oddone, who earlier in the day admitted it was a “bittersweet moment,” lauded the new machine as the result of “two and a half decades of dreams to open up this huge new territory in the exploration of the natural world.”
Roger Aymar, CERN’s director, called the new collider a “discovery machine.” The buzz was worldwide. On the blog “Cosmic Variance,” Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan called the new collider “a why machine.”
Others, worried about speculation that a black hole could emerge from the proton collisions, had called it a doomsday machine, to the dismay of CERN physicists who can point to a variety of studies and reports that say that this fear is nothing but science fiction.
But Boaz Klima, a Fermilab particle physicist, said that the speculation had nevertheless helped create buzz about particle physics. “This is something that people can talk to their neighbors about,” he said.
The only thing physicists agree on is that they do not know what will happen — what laws and particles will prevail — when the collisions reach the energies just after the Big Bang.
“That there are many theories means we don’t have a clue,” said Dr. Oddone. “That’s what makes it so exciting.”
Many physicists hope to materialize a hypothetical particle called the Higgs boson, which according to theory endows other particles with mass. They also hope to identify the nature of the invisible dark matter that makes up 25 percent of the universe and provides the scaffolding for galaxies. Some dream of revealing new dimensions of space-time.
But those discoveries are in the future. If the new collider were a car, then what physicists did Wednesday was turn on an engine that will now warm up for a couple of months before anyone drives it anywhere. The first meaningful collisions, at an energy of five trillion electron volts, will not happen until late fall.
Nevertheless, the symbolism of the moment was not lost on all those gathered here.
Once upon a time the United States ruled particle physics. For the last two decades, Fermilab’s Tevatron, which hurls protons and their mirror opposites, antiprotons, together at energies of a trillion electron volts apiece, was the world’s largest particle machine.
By year’s end, when the CERN collider has revved up to five trillion electron volts, the Fermilab machine will be a distant second. Electron volts are the currency of choice in physics for both mass and energy. The more you have, the closer and hotter you can punch back in time toward the Big Bang.
In 1993, the United States Congress canceled plans for an even bigger collider and more powerful machine, the Superconducting Supercollider, after its cost ballooned to $11 billion. In the United States, particle physics never really recovered, said the supercollider’s former director, Roy F. Schwitters of the University of Texas in Austin. “One nonrenewable resource is a person’s time and good years,” he said.
Dr. Oddone, Fermilab’s director, said the uncertainties of steady Congressional financing made physics in the United States unduly “suspenseful.”
CERN, on the other hand, is an organization of 20 countries with a stable budget established by treaty. The year after the supercollider was killed, CERN decided to build its own collider.
Fermilab and the United States, which eventually contributed $531 million for the collider, have not exactly been shut out. Dr. Oddone said that Americans constitute about a quarter of the scientists who built the four giant detectors that sit at points around the racetrack to collect and analyze the debris from the primordial fireballs.
In fact, a remote control room for monitoring one of those experiments, known inelegantly as the Compact Muon Solenoid, was built at Fermilab, just off the lobby of the main building here.
“The mood is great at this place,” he said, noting that the Tevatron was humming productively and still might find the Higgs boson before the new hadron collider.
Another target of physicists is a principle called supersymmetry, which predicts, among other things, that a vast population of new particle species is left over from the Big Bang and waiting to be discovered, one of which could be the long-sought dark matter.
The festivities started at 2 a.m. Chicago time. Speaking by satellite, Dr. Evans, the collider project director at CERN, outlined the plan for the evening: sending a bunch of protons clockwise farther and farther around the collider, stopping them and checking their orbit, until they made it all the way. He noted that for a previous CERN accelerator it had taken 12 hours. “I hope this will go much faster,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, the displays in the control room showed that the beam had made it to its first stopping point. A few minutes later, the physicists erupted in cheers when their consoles showed that the muon solenoid had detected collisions between the beam and stray gas molecules in the otherwise vacuum beam pipe. Their detector was alive and working.
Finally at 3:28 Chicago time (10:28 a.m. at CERN), the display showed the protons had made it all the way around to another big detector named Atlas.
At Fermilab, they broke out the Champagne. Dr. Oddone congratulated his colleagues around the world. “We have all worked together and brought this machine to life,” he said. “We’re so excited about sending a beam around. Wait until we start having collisions and doing physics.”
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: September 10, 2008
After 14 years of labor, scientists at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva successfully activated the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest, most powerful particle collider and, at $8 billion, the most expensive scientific experiment to date.
At 4:28 a.m., Eastern time, the scientists announced that a beam of protons had completed its first circuit around the collider’s 17-mile-long racetrack, 300 feet underneath the Swiss-French border. They then sent the beam around several more times.
“It’s a fantastic moment,” said Lyn Evans, who has been the project director of the collider since its inception in 1994. “We can now look forward to a new era of understanding about the origins and evolution of the universe.”
Eventually, the collider is expected to accelerate protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts and then smash them together, recreating conditions in the primordial fireball only a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Scientists hope the machine will be a sort of Hubble Space Telescope of inner space, allowing them to detect new subatomic particles and forces of nature.
An ocean away from Geneva, the new collider’s activation was watched with rueful excitement here at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, which has had the reigning particle collider.
Several dozen physicists, students and onlookers, and three local mayors gathered overnight to watch the dawn of a new high-energy physics. They applauded each milestone as the scientists methodically steered the protons on their course at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Many of them, including the lab’s director, Pier Oddone, were wearing pajamas or bathrobes or even nightcaps bearing Fermilab “pajama party” patches on them.
Outside, a half moon was hanging low in a cloudy sky, a reminder that the universe was beautiful and mysterious and that another small step into that mystery was about to be taken.
Dr. Oddone, who earlier in the day admitted it was a “bittersweet moment,” lauded the new machine as the result of “two and a half decades of dreams to open up this huge new territory in the exploration of the natural world.”
Roger Aymar, CERN’s director, called the new collider a “discovery machine.” The buzz was worldwide. On the blog “Cosmic Variance,” Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan called the new collider “a why machine.”
Others, worried about speculation that a black hole could emerge from the proton collisions, had called it a doomsday machine, to the dismay of CERN physicists who can point to a variety of studies and reports that say that this fear is nothing but science fiction.
But Boaz Klima, a Fermilab particle physicist, said that the speculation had nevertheless helped create buzz about particle physics. “This is something that people can talk to their neighbors about,” he said.
The only thing physicists agree on is that they do not know what will happen — what laws and particles will prevail — when the collisions reach the energies just after the Big Bang.
“That there are many theories means we don’t have a clue,” said Dr. Oddone. “That’s what makes it so exciting.”
Many physicists hope to materialize a hypothetical particle called the Higgs boson, which according to theory endows other particles with mass. They also hope to identify the nature of the invisible dark matter that makes up 25 percent of the universe and provides the scaffolding for galaxies. Some dream of revealing new dimensions of space-time.
But those discoveries are in the future. If the new collider were a car, then what physicists did Wednesday was turn on an engine that will now warm up for a couple of months before anyone drives it anywhere. The first meaningful collisions, at an energy of five trillion electron volts, will not happen until late fall.
Nevertheless, the symbolism of the moment was not lost on all those gathered here.
Once upon a time the United States ruled particle physics. For the last two decades, Fermilab’s Tevatron, which hurls protons and their mirror opposites, antiprotons, together at energies of a trillion electron volts apiece, was the world’s largest particle machine.
By year’s end, when the CERN collider has revved up to five trillion electron volts, the Fermilab machine will be a distant second. Electron volts are the currency of choice in physics for both mass and energy. The more you have, the closer and hotter you can punch back in time toward the Big Bang.
In 1993, the United States Congress canceled plans for an even bigger collider and more powerful machine, the Superconducting Supercollider, after its cost ballooned to $11 billion. In the United States, particle physics never really recovered, said the supercollider’s former director, Roy F. Schwitters of the University of Texas in Austin. “One nonrenewable resource is a person’s time and good years,” he said.
Dr. Oddone, Fermilab’s director, said the uncertainties of steady Congressional financing made physics in the United States unduly “suspenseful.”
CERN, on the other hand, is an organization of 20 countries with a stable budget established by treaty. The year after the supercollider was killed, CERN decided to build its own collider.
Fermilab and the United States, which eventually contributed $531 million for the collider, have not exactly been shut out. Dr. Oddone said that Americans constitute about a quarter of the scientists who built the four giant detectors that sit at points around the racetrack to collect and analyze the debris from the primordial fireballs.
In fact, a remote control room for monitoring one of those experiments, known inelegantly as the Compact Muon Solenoid, was built at Fermilab, just off the lobby of the main building here.
“The mood is great at this place,” he said, noting that the Tevatron was humming productively and still might find the Higgs boson before the new hadron collider.
Another target of physicists is a principle called supersymmetry, which predicts, among other things, that a vast population of new particle species is left over from the Big Bang and waiting to be discovered, one of which could be the long-sought dark matter.
The festivities started at 2 a.m. Chicago time. Speaking by satellite, Dr. Evans, the collider project director at CERN, outlined the plan for the evening: sending a bunch of protons clockwise farther and farther around the collider, stopping them and checking their orbit, until they made it all the way. He noted that for a previous CERN accelerator it had taken 12 hours. “I hope this will go much faster,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, the displays in the control room showed that the beam had made it to its first stopping point. A few minutes later, the physicists erupted in cheers when their consoles showed that the muon solenoid had detected collisions between the beam and stray gas molecules in the otherwise vacuum beam pipe. Their detector was alive and working.
Finally at 3:28 Chicago time (10:28 a.m. at CERN), the display showed the protons had made it all the way around to another big detector named Atlas.
At Fermilab, they broke out the Champagne. Dr. Oddone congratulated his colleagues around the world. “We have all worked together and brought this machine to life,” he said. “We’re so excited about sending a beam around. Wait until we start having collisions and doing physics.”
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: September 10, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)