Test Timeline

10 Sep 2008: CERN successfully fired the first protons around the entire tunnel circuit in stages.

10 Sep 2008: CERN successfully fired the first protons around the entire tunnel circuit in stages.

19 Sep 2008: Magnetic quench occurred in about 100 bending magnets in sectors 3 and 4, causing a loss of approximately 6 tonnes of liquid helium.

30 Sep 2008:First 'modest' high-energy collisions planned but postponed due to accident.

16 Oct 2008: CERN released a preliminary analysis of the incident.

21 Oct 2008:Official inauguration.

5 Dec 2008:CERN released detailed analysis.

20 Nov 2009: Low-energy beams circulated in the tunnel for the first time since the incident.

23 Nov 2009: First particle collisions in all 4 detectors at 450 GeV.

30 Nov 2009: LHC becomes the world's highest energy particle accelerator achieving 1.18 TeV per beam, beating the Tevatron's previous record of 0.98 TeV per beam held for 8 years.

28 Feb 2010: The LHC continues operations ramping energies to run at 3.5 TeV for 18 months to two years, after which it will be shut down to prepare for the 14 TeV collisions (7 TeV per beam).

30 March 2010:Researchers will collide proton beams at record high energy in a new bid to discover secrets of the universe.