Large Hardon Collider Behind-The-Scenes Exhibition Opens At Queensland Museum

For those who want to experience what it is like to step inside the world's largest scientific experiment, a 27-kilometer circular underground tunnel built to smash particles into each other, the Large Hardon Collider (LHC), is now on exhibit at the Queensland Museum in Australia.

"The Hadron Collider: Step Inside The World's Greatest Experiment" showcases a recreation of the physics laboratory at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The LHC is a tunnel built under the border between France and Switzerland near Geneva.

"The exhibition is dark, so that when you're in it, we want you to believe you're underground at CERN," Alison Boyle, exhibition curator, said as reported by ABC. "We want people to feel what it's like walking the tunnels and going down into the experiment caverns. It's truly an international experiment and the rings of the LHC is a great big tunnel that they accelerate particles around in," she added.

The Science Museum in London first developed the exhibit showing the LHC's tunnel of super conduction magnets. The actual LHC was built by more than 10,000 physicists and engineers from 100 countries.

"Visitors can talk to virtual scientists, walk the tunnels of CERN, explore the control room and stand in the heart of a particle collision," Professor Suzanne Miller, Queensland Museum Network CEO and director, said as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.

In fact, according to the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the LHC is by far the most powerful particle accelerator today. It allows scientists to recreate the conditions that happen within a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. The LHC forces two high-energy particle beams to travel like the speed of light and collide with each other.

This is the moment when the universe is believed to be born around 13.7 billion years ago. This machine could shed light on the universe's past, leaving scientists to determine what truly caused its birth.