LEP's final hour approaches


30 August 2000

LEP's final hour sm

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The end of an era is approaching as CERN, Europe's research centre for particle physics, prepares to shut down the Large Electron Positron accelerator, LEP. The machine, which started up in August 1989, has been the world's largest scientific instrument, occupying a tunnel 27 km in circumference. It has been a veritable "factory" for the production of Z particles, the neutral carriers of the weak force, enabling detailed studies of the present Standard Model of fundamental particles and forces. This image, taken in March 1999, shows technicians at work in the tunnel on one of LEP's 3368 electromagnets. LEP is to be shut down to make way for the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) .

Credit: CERN Photo