First particles smashed in Hadron Collider

Scientists have smashed together proton beams for the first time in a 27km tunnel under the French-Swiss border in an initial step towards discovering how the universe came into existence.

Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) hope experiments will already start giving clues about the origins of the universe in the coming months as the world's biggest particle collider starts moving to full power.

'It's a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time,' said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer about the collision.

The collision was achieved by sending two bunches of subatomic particles around the ring in opposite directions.

It is only four days since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched back on after being halted by an accident 14 months ago, just ten days after its first start-up.

Earlier, physicist Steve Myers said it could take until 2011 for beams of protons to hit top velocity in the €6bn experiment, which involves scientists from dozens of countries.

The key aim of the project at the CERN research centre is to try to discover how the universe took shape, after the Big Bang 13.7bn years ago spilt out matter at vast speeds and energies that eventually became suns, stars, planets and then life itself.

Experiments in a previous collider at the CERN research centre near Geneva at the foot of the French Jura mountains staged particle collisions producing energy very close to that of the Big Bang.

The LHC operating at its full might should recreate conditions like those just one billionth of a second after the primeval explosion.

The scientists now plan to increase the beam intensity and accelerate the beams further so they can gather enough collision data by Christmas to help set up experiments.