In the LHC tunnel and caverns, a particle accelerator and detectors are rapidly taking shape. At last week's Council meeting, delegates took stock of the year's progress towards first collisions in 2007.
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The year 2006 has been an eventful one for particle physics in Europe. Here at CERN, the LHC project has progressed steadily towards the goal of a November 2007 start-up.
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Particle physics can take you a long way - even into space! Astronaut Christer Fuglesang recently jetted into orbit on his first space mission, 14 years after he left CERN to join the European Space Agency.
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It was an amazing engineering challenge - the lowering of the first hugeendcap disc (YE+3) of the CMS detector slowly and carefully 100 metres underground.
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With the impressive size and unprecedented power of the LHC, it is all too easy to overlook the smaller devices that have the difficult task of monitoring the new accelerator. You don't have to stand too far back from the big picture to see examples of clever technology inside the LHC.
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