As you probably know by now, the Large Hadron Collider was shut down last week due to problems with the magnets which overheated and the scientists decided to turn it off. Although initially the LHC was scheduled to return in a few weeks, maybe even a few months, it seems like the particle accelerator will be turned on in the spring of 2009.

When the scientists were looking for the problem, they found out that the LHC had a liquid-helium leak due to a failure of a connection between the magnets. Now, the engineers have to clean up and to “fully investigate the problem” before they start the LHC once again.

“It’s usually around late March or early April that we start re-commissioning the whole accelerator chain. The LHC being at the end of that chain,” said James Gillies, director of communications at CERN.

Well, I am sorry to hear about that as I’m really interested in the results of their tests. I’m pretty sure that the Earth will not blow up or that we will be swallowed by a black hole. Hopefully, I will no be proven wrong.

via BBC