CERN runs the world’s most powerful particle accelerator beneath the countryside near Geneva, pushing matter to its limits, chasing the building blocks of the universe. The Large Hadron Collider is a 27-kilometer underground ring crossing the France–Switzerland border. Protons are accelerated to near light speed and smashed together, confirming discoveries like the Higgs boson and anchoring modern particle physics. CERN is also planning a much larger successor, the 91-kilometer Future Circular C