Current Experiments
Some examples of prominent experimental physics projects are:
- Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider which collides heavy ions such as gold ions (it is the first heavy ion collider) and protons, it is located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island, USA.
- HERA, which collides electrons or positrons and protons, and is part of DESY, located in Hamburg, Germany.
- LHC, or the Large Hadron Collider, which completed construction in 2008 but suffered a series of setbacks. The LHC began operations in 2008, but was shut down for maintenance until the summer of 2009. It is the world's most energetic collider upon completion, it is located at CERN, on the French-Swiss border near Geneva. The collider became fully operational March 29, 2010 a year and a half later than originally planned.
- JWST, or the James Webb Space Telescope, is planned for launch in 2013. It will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It will survey the sky in the infrared region. The main goals of the JWST will be in order to understand the initial stages of the universe, galaxy formation as well as the formations of stars and planets, and the origins of life.
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