Oh noes!
[Source CNN]
Collider's transformer breaks, halts experiment
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- A 30-ton transformer that cools the world's largest particle collider malfunctioned, forcing physicists to stop using the atom smasher just a day after launching it to great fanfare, the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Thursday.
The collider's ALICE experiment will look at how the universe formed by analyzing particle collisions.
The faulty transformer has been replaced and the ring in the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border has been cooled back down to near absolute zero -- or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit -- the most efficient operating temperature, said a statement by CERN, as the organization is known.
When the transformer malfunctioned, operating temperatures rose from below 2 Kelvin to 4.5 Kelvin -- extraordinarily cold by most standards, but warmer than the normal operating temperature.
The Large Hadron Collider was launched September 10, when scientists circled a beam of protons in a clockwise direction at the speed of light. That was followed by a counterclockwise beam. 
Check out the collider complex's six detectors »
"Several hundred orbits" were made, said the statement.
On the evening of September 11, scientists were able to control the counterclockwise beam with equipment that keeps the protons bunched tightly and ready for collisions before the transformer failed and the system was shut down, the statement said.
Now that the transformer has been replaced and the equipment rechilled, a similar attempt is expected shortly to tighten the clockwise beam and prepare experiments in coming weeks, it said.
The Large Hadron Collider is designed to collide protons in the beams so that they shatter and reveal more about the makeup of matter and the universe.
