LHC smashes beam collision record, Earth not sucked in to black hole

Scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) say they have moved a step closer to their aim of unlocking the mysteries of the Universe. The world's highest-energy particle accelerator has produced a record-breaking particle collision rate – about double the previous rate.

The collider is now generating around 10,000 particle collisions per second, according to physicist Andrei Golutvin. The LHC is housed in a 27km circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border.

The vast machine is...