The world's largest particle collider is gearing up for another run of smashing particles together at nearly the speed of light.

After its hiatus for two years because of needed upgrades, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will resume operations this year, and is expected to be twice as powerful as it was during its first run. With the upgrade, the US$10 billion instrument is expected to provide many answers physicists have been looking for over generations.

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This year, they expect to make discoveries even more fascinating than the Higgs boson. The discovery won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics as the Higgs boson explains how objects acquire mass.

When the LHC fires up again this year, it will reach energies of 13 trillion electron volts, enough current to melt 1 ton of copper. This run is expected to last until 2018. CERN also said it consolidated and conducted maintenance programs in LHC experiments to adapt it for more challenges.

In addition to the higher number of collisions, the LHC will be able to produce more particles per unit time. Two years back, the accelerator separated bunches of protons in time by 50 nanoseconds. This will be reduced to half this time, and the separation will occur at 25 nanoseconds.

CERN director Frederick Bordry said the organization has significant ideas for a long-term future. The instrument will continuously be upgraded during the course of the study. With the help of the LHC, physicists expect to find evidence to support the theory of supersymmetry.

TagsLarge Hadron Collider, LHC, CERN, largest particle collider, dark matter, particles