Super Push for a Supercollider

Site selection begins for the world's biggest accelerator

The underground tunnel will form a giant ring 53 miles in circumference. Streams of subatomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light will be held on course by huge electromagnets. When one stream of high-speed protons smashes into another stream moving in the opposite direction, the force of the collision will create a host of short-lived particles not seen since the first moments after the Big Bang gave birth to the universe. Physicists are hoping that the appearance of exotic new particles -- higgs bosons, squarks and sleptons -- will open new vistas of inner space for scientists to study.

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