GENEVA: More than 60,000 people this weekend visited the immense cathedral of cables and steel at CERN, Europe’s atom-smashing laboratory that could soon unleash some secrets of the universe.

More than 23,000 turned up on Saturday for a family day arranged for the centre’s personnel. On Sunday, another 40,000 visitors arrived to for a look at the massive Large Hadron Collider (LHC), said CERN spokesman James Gillier.

And many people waited for hours for the experience. Around 19 years in the making, the LHC, also the largest scientific instrument ever made, is expected to be put into service in the summer.

If things go according to plan, it could help to unveil a sub-atomic component, the Higgs Boson, which has even been dubbed “the God Particle.” Other work on the LHC could explain dark matter and dark energy — strange phenomena that account for 96 per cent of the Universe.

The LHC will whizz protons to 99.9999 per cent of the speed of light in two parallel beams in a ring-shaped tunnel 27 kilometres long and up to 175 metres below the ground. The tunnel stretches out from Switzerland into France, looping back into Swiss territory.—AFP