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Visitors to CERN will now be able to appreciate first-hand the sheer scale of the computing challenge associated with the LHC, during guided visits to the Computing Centre.

Two more of CERN's experimental facilities have recently been added to the itineraries offered to the public by the Visits Service. The general public will now be able to see the COMPASS experiment and CERN's Computing Centre.

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing demand for visits. Last year, 25 000 visitors came to see sites at CERN. 'Visitors to CERN are impressed by the sheer scale of the experiments, interested to find out how they work and amazed at how they are often located underground,' says Dominique Bertola, Head of the CERN Visits Service.

COMPASS is the first fixed-target experiment available for viewing to the general public. The linear structure of the detector makes it an ideal exhibit for the visitors, because it permits them to see the different stages of the experiment and intuitively appreciate how it works.

During a guided tour, visitors to CERN's computing centre will find out more about the development of the Grid and its importance to CERN and the global scientific community. On a different level, visitors will be able to appreciate the amount of computing power required, by comparing their own PCs at home with the thousands of new desktop computers set to process data from the LHC.

The Visits Service now offers 7 sites in total: LHCb, ATLAS, CMS, the Antimatter factory, the LINAC and the two new sites.