Officials from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) reported today that the Large Hadron Collider - the world's most powerful atom smasher - was shut down by a weasel-like rodent that chewed through one of its power cables. The 17-mile-long machine rests underground on the border of France and Switzerland.
After the shutdown occurred, a subsequent investigation led to the discovery of the remains of a furry animal near the destroyed power cable.
"We had electrical problems, and we are pretty sure this was caused by a small animal," said Arnaud Marsollier, head of press for CERN, adding that the animal was likely a weasel, although the state of the remains makes it difficult to be certain.
"We are in the countryside, and of course we have wild animals everywhere," Marsollier added.
The Large Hadron Collider was first powered up in 2008 and consists of a 17-mile ring of superconducting magnets that possess numerous accelerating structures that boost the energy of the particles as they make their way through the device.
The world-famous atom smasher has been a key player in the field of physics discoveries such as the detection of a pentaquark, a subatomic particle that was predicted in the 1960s but never actually detected for decades. Quarks are the building blocks that make up hadrons, the most common being protons and neutrons.
In addition, the device also led to the first experimental evidence of the Higgs boson particle in 2012, a physics mystery that has baffled scientists for some time. The elusive particle is nicknamed the "God particle" due to the fact that it likely explains how other particles obtain their mass.
Marsollier said that the weasel incident means the collider might not be fully operational until the middle of May.
The incident comes just a month after the atom smasher begin revealing physics data for the first time in 27 months after a two-year period of shutdown and re-commissioning. It was fully operational again in March at an unprecedented energy of 14 tera-electron volts (TeVs), which is nearly double the collision energy of the original run. Prior to the setback, the Large Hadron Collider was supposed to run full-time for the next three years.
