A view of the control center at CERN as they set a world record by accelerating beams to the highest energy ever achieved in a particle collider, November 30, 2009. REUTERS/CERN/Handout 1 of 6 images

GENEVA (Reuters) – The "Big Bang" experiment at CERN near Geneva scored a world record on Monday by accelerating beams to the highest energy ever achieved in a particle collider, the research center announced.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said the achievement marked a major milestone on the way to tests next year which they hope will unlock secrets of the origins and make-up of the universe.

The energy of the twin beams circulated around 27-km tunnels deep underground went, at 1.18 trillion electric volts (TeV), well past the previous highest — just under 1 TeV — in a collider at the U.S. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

The achievement in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came 10 days after the world's largest scientific experiment was restarted following an accident soon after its launch in September 2008.

"We are still coming to terms with just how smooth the LHC commissioning is going," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer as the record was announced. "It is fantastic."

More of the story,
click image