Back in business:The first ion beam entering point 2 of the LHC, just before the ALICE detector

By Hamish Johnston

Physicsts at CERN passed an important milestone (again!) last weekend by injecting the first beam of ions into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since the disastrous shutdown of September, 2008.

According to a CERN press release, lead ions were placed in the clockwise beam pipe on Friday 23 October and guided past the Alice detector before being dumped.

Later that day the first beam of protons followed the same route — and then on Saturday protons were sent through the LHCb detector.

CERN said “All settings and parameters showed a perfect functioning of the machine, which is preparing for its first circulating beam in the coming weeks”.

Matin Durrani recently spoke to CERN boss Rolf-Dieter Heuer about the switch-on of the LHC — you can watch the interview here or below, along with two other videos made at CERN.