CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland has been powered down to begin its High-Luminosity LHC upgrade. Paulo Fessia, deputy head of the upgrade project, is overseeing the work.
Beyond particle smashing, machinery at the CERN site is also used to understand cloud formation. Eva Sommer, Run Coordinator of a related project, explained how clouds form from aerosol particles in a specialised chamber, which informs climate models.
Looking ahead, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) is being considered as a potential next phase for European particle physics. This proposed collider is anticipated to be 3.4 times larger than the LHC and is estimated to cost approximately £14 billion.