newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci...09875.stm

Awesome energy

The operating temperature of the LHC is just a shade above "absolute zero" (-273.15C) - the coldest temperature possible. By comparison, the temperature in remote regions of outer space is about 2.7 kelvin (-270C; -454F). The LHC's magnets are designed to be "superconducting", which means they channel electric current with zero resistance and very little power loss. But to become superconducting, the magnets must be cooled to very low temperatures.
For this reason, the LHC is innervated by a complex system of cryogenic lines using liquid helium as the refrigerant of choice. No particle physics facility on this scale has ever operated in such frigid conditions. But before a beam can be circulated around the 27km-long LHC ring, engineers will have to thoroughly test the machine's new quench protection system and continue with magnet powering tests. Particle beams have already been brought "to the door" of the Large Hadron Collider. A low-intensity beam could be injected into the LHC in as little as a week. This beam test would involve only parts of the collider, rather than the whole "ring".

The LHC's tunnel runs for 27km under the Franco-Swiss border
Officials now plan to circulate a beam around the LHC in the second half of November. Engineers will then aim to smash low-intensity beams together, giving scientists their first data. The beams' energy will then be increased so that the first high-energy collisions can take place. These will mark the real beginning of the LHC's research programme. Collisions at high energy have been scheduled to occur in December, but now look more likely to happen in January, according to Cern's director of communications James Gillies.