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Coolest. Thing. Ever.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6402493.stm
Milestone for giant physics lab
YB0 segment of CMS positioned over its shaft Image: CMS
YB0 is the biggest and most impressive element of the CMS
Construction on a giant underground laboratory that will help take physics into a new era reaches a major milestone on Wednesday.
From 0500 GMT, a crane will lower 2,000 tonnes of machinery into a man-made cavern 100m below ground.
The machinery is part of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), one of four big experiments belonging to the world's most powerful particle accelerator.
This accelerator is being built at Cern, on the Franco-Swiss border.
It will be spectacular
Jim Virdee
CMS team spokesman
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to probe the limits of physics.
It is a powerful and complicated machine, which will smash particles together at super-fast speeds in a bid to unlock the secrets of the Universe.
This particle accelerator comprises over 1,000 powerful magnets occupying a subterranean tunnel that runs in a ring for 27km.
The magnets carry two beams of particles around the ring at speeds close to the speed of light.
Critical parts
At certain points along this ring, the beams cross over, causing some of the particles to collide head-on.
Each of the four huge LHC experiments, including the CMS, sits near one of these crossing points.
These experiments, or detectors, will capture and measure new particles produced in the collisions.
These could point to new phenomena beyond the so-called standard model of physics - a framework to explain the interactions of sub-atomic particles.
The CMS is being lowered into its underground cavern piece by piece
Enlarge Image
The 2,000-tonne piece that will be winched down the 100m shaft at Cern on Wednesday is the largest and most impressive segment of the CMS.
It is called the Yoke Barrel 0, or YB0 for short, and forms the central "barrel wheel" segment of the CMS experiment. It is flanked on either side by two smaller wheels.
The YB0 element will house most of the critical inner parts of the experiment and is about 16m tall, 17m wide and 13m long.
"It is the largest of 15 pieces due to go down," said Jim Virdee, chief spokesman for the CMS science team.
"It will be spectacular. We were drawing all these things 15 years ago on a piece of paper. So to see them being assembled is exciting and partly emotional."
'God' particle
If all goes well, the YB0 element should be fully lowered into its cavern by 1700 to 1800 GMT on Wednesday.
So far, eight of the 15 key elements that make up the CMS have been successfully lowered. YB0 will be the ninth.
The experiment will then have to be assembled into its final configuration inside the cavern.
In its final form, the Compact Muon Solenoid will be cylindrical, 21m long and 16m in diameter and weigh approximately 12,500 tonnes.
The CMS is one of two general purpose experiments at the LHC.
It will aim to identify the elusive Higgs boson (known as the "God particle" because of its importance to the Standard Model of physics), look for so-called supersymmetric particles and seek out the existence of extra dimensions.
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