Largest particle accelerator is completed

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 2 (UPI) -- The last quadripolar magnet has been installed in the world's biggest particle accelerator, marking the completion of Europe's Large Hadron Collider.

Officials at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said the magnet is one of a series of 392 units that will ensure the beams of particles are kept on track through the tunnel.

Built to help answer the most fundamental questions in physics, the accelerator is housed in a 17-mile-long circular tunnel buried 328 feet beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.

The particle accelerator is composed of 1,700 large magnets of which 392 are quadripole magnets designed to guide and focus the beams. The accelerator is to begin operating in November.

CERN is a collaboration of scientists from Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Sweden.

Switzerland, India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States, Turkey, the European Commission and the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have observer status.