It's coming up to the time when a scientific apparatus branded a 'death machine' by many is to be turned on again, as the 17-mile-long experiment has been estimated by many, including Elon Musk, to be the end of humanity.
Built in the period between 1998 and 2008, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was created by over 10,000 scientists from around 100 different countries, and represents a major scientific achievement when it comes to research on the universe.
Experiments involving scientific extremes are often comically exaggerated in their dangers, but many consider the LHC and other creations by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to be putting the future of humanity at risk.
Advert
In essence, the LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, made up of a 17-mile-long (27km) ring of magnets designed to boost the speed of particles running through its tubes.
Particles in separate pipes travel in opposite directions at a speed that almost reaches the speed of light (roughly 186,000 miles per second), until they're eventually made to collide. At this point, scientists observe the reaction that occurs, which typically involves the conversion of kinetic energy into new particles.
The Higgs boson was the most famous creation of the Large Hadron Collider, and it allowed researchers to explain the mass of other particles in the universe.
Many have preached against the dangers of the lengthy device though, as the unprecedented power of the LHC is understandably scary, and it's even possible for it to create 'unstable' black holes - albeit these would be so small that they would only last for a fraction of a second.
Elon Musk has previously expressed his opposition to CERN's creation, posting a sarcastic image on X in 2022 that wrote: "Please let me use the CERN large hadron collider. I am normal and can be trusted with a demonic technology unlike anything the world has ever seen."
He won't be too happy to hear that CERN is booting operations back up again in the next few months, as detailed in a release titled 'Particles are back in the accelerators'.
"At the end of each year, the whole complex comes to a halt for the traditional 'year-end technical stop'," the statement details. This 'YETS' allows the team at CERN to perform maintenance, upgrades, and training on the LHC before opening it up again in a few months time.
"This year, the wheels were set back in motion on 19 February, when the first particle beam of 2025 circulated in Linac4. The second link in the chain, the PS Booster, received its first particles on 26 February, the PS on 4 March and, today, the SPS accelerated its first proton beams of the year," wrote CERN on March 14.
The LHS is the last to be reactivated as it is by far the largest and most significant, and a date of April 4 has been set for the 'titan' to be reawakened.
This is far from the only exciting announcement coming out of CERN though, as they've also announced plans to accelerate and collide oxygen ions at the beginning of July this year, which is the first time this has happened in the LHC and we could therefore see some fascinating results.