Hadron Collider smashes records

Scientists were celebrating today after the Large Hadron Collider produced record-breaking high-energy particle collisions.

The £6.7 billion machine, housed in a tunnel near Geneva, smashed beams of protons together at energies that are 3.5 times higher than previously achieved.

Researchers billed it as a "new era of science" and hope the breakthrough can lead to insights into the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being.

There was cheering and applause in the control room as the first collisions were confirmed at Cern (the European Organisation for Nuclear research) where the collider is housed.

However, scientists said that the data gathered from the sub-atomic impacts had to be evaluated properly and the public should not expect immediate results.

Spokesman Guido Tonelli said: "Major discoveries will happen only when we are able to collect billions of events and identify among them the very rare events that could present a new state of matter or new particles. This is not going to happen tomorrow. It will require months and years of patient work."