An awe-inspiring new video is a reminder of just how enormous the Large Hadron Collider really is -- and it looks even bigger when you get to see all of it.
The video (above), which BBC News released last week, offers an unprecedented 360-degree view of the particle collider. At any time during the video, viewers can click on the screen and drag the mouse to reorient their point of view within the massive machine.
It's something very few people have seen, narrator Spencer Kelly says in the video. The LHC is the largest machine in the world and sits a little more than 325 feet beneath the Swiss-French border.
The machine is used to smash particles -- at close to the speed of light -- so scientists can determine what even smaller particles may result from such collisions.
"This is big science performed on the tiniest of scales," Kelly says in the video.
Researchers recently detected brief flashes of light inside the LHC, and now physicists are scratching their heads about whether they could be the first glimpse at a big new discovery, The Guardian reported on Friday. More data is needed to confirm whether a new fundamental particle has been found.
Wired reported that the LHC’s next run, in April, could provide an answer.
"This is exactly the spirit of theoretical physics," Gian Giudice from particle physics laboratory CERN told Wired. "You take the data at your disposal, and then you start thinking if it fits with some of your ideas about the universe."
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