Aerial view of CERN and the surrounding region of Switzerland and France. Three rings are visible, the smaller (at lower right) shows the underground position of the Proton Synchrotron, the middle ring is the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) with a circumference of 7 km and the largest ring (27 km) is that of the former Large Electron and Positron collider (LEP) accelerator with part of Lake Geneva in the background.

View of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment Tracker Outer Barrel (TOB) in the cleaning room. The CMS is one of two general-purpose LHC experiments designed to explore the physics of the Terascale, the energy region where physicists believe they will find answers to the central questions at the heart of 21st-century particle physics. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN)

The Globe of Innovation in the morning. The wooden globe is a structure originally built for Switzerland's national exhibition, Expo'02, and is 40 meters wide, 27 meters tall.

Assembly and installation of the ATLAS Hadronic endcap Liquid Argon Calorimeter. The ATLAS detector contains a series of ever-larger concentric cylinders around the central interaction point where the LHC's proton beams collide

Checks are performed on the alignment of the magnets in the LHC tunnel. It is vital that each magnet is placed exactly where it has been designed so that the path of the beam is precisely controlled.

The ALICE Inner Tracking System during its transport in the experimental cavern and its insertion into the Time Projection Chamber (TPC). ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment @ CERN) will study the physics of ultrahigh-energy proton-proton and lead-lead collisions and will explore conditions in the first instants of the universe, a few microseconds after the Big Bang

Insertion of the tracker in the heart of the CMS detector.

The LHCb electromagnetic calorimeter. This huge 6X7 square meter wall consists of 3300 blocks containing scintillator, fibre optics and lead. It will measure the energy of particles produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC when it is started. Photons, electrons and positrons will pass through the layers of material in these modules and deposit their energy in the detector through a shower of particles.

Photo from the CMS pixel-strip integration test performed at the Tracker Integration Facility at the Meyrin site.

French, Swiss and CERN firemen move rescue equipment through the LHC tunnel.

The Z+ end of the CMS Tracker with Tracker Outer Barrel completed.

View from the surface during lowering of the first ATLAS small wheel into the tunnel on side C of the cavern.

ebaum at his desk.