Contest #114 answer: Large Hadron Collider

Well, I underestimated you all. I thought this one would be harder to guess, as there are hardly any visible clues of the object which this contest points at. It is the Large Hadran Collider, situated at the French-Swiss border near Geneva. Built in commission of Cern, it is a 26.5 km in circumference (that is 16.5 miles, for the non-SI speaking) and located at a depth of 50-150 m (160-500 ft).


It actually successfully fired the first collision beam in the week I published this contest.

lhc_hall

There is a dedicated LHC website at Cern with lots of interesting information.

To get an idea of the sheer size and the location of the supporting buildings, just download this kmz file and open it in Google Earth. It has some 3D renderings of the buildings and an animation of the colliding beams.

Those who found the higgs-boson particle:

  • David S
  • David
  • Dennis S.
  • Milosh, Serbia
  • brian t
  • Andy McConnell
  • Michael T
  • Max_Power
  • ej
  • Willem