APOD 3.8

This weeks apod is of the LDC, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), built in Europe by CERN, the European Organiztion for Nuclear Research, is the wordl's largest particle accelerator. The image is particularily of the ATLAS detector, one of the six detectors being attached to the LHC. A prticle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electrically-charged particles to high speeds and to contain them.They come in two basic types which are linear accelerators and circular accelerators. An ordinary television set is a simple form of accelerator. The LHC is schedule to start performing in May of this year. The LHC will hopefully be responsible for exploring the explanation that mass arises from ordinary particles that "slog" through Higgs particles. LHC will also look for micro black holes, magnetic monopoles, and explore the possibility that every type of fundamental particle we know about has a nearly invisible supersymmetric counterpart. How exciting!