Report: Collider halted for months

CERN, Switzerland, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Scientists say a magnet failure has idled the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland for at least two months.

The new atom smasher was to be turned off for the weekend, but engineers found damage to the $6.6 billion particle accelerator was worse than expected, the BBC reported Saturday.

On Friday, nearly 100 of the collider's super-cooled magnets overheated, causing a ton of liquid helium to leak into the collider's tunnel at Cern, near Geneva, the BBC said.

The damaged part of the collider now must be heated up to above absolute zero for repairs to be made, said collider spokesman James Gillies.

The collider fired its first proton beams just over a week ago.