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.......Geneva, 10 Sept. (AKI) - Scientists have hailed a successful start-up for the world's most powerful particle accelerator in an experiment to recreate the conditions a few moments after the so-called Big Bang - or start of the universe.

Cheers echoed around the control room at CERN - the European organisation for nuclear research - after scientists fired two beams of particles called protons around the 27km-long tunnel which houses the super-collider.

The first - clockwise - beam completed its first circuit of the underground tunnel at just before 0930 BST. The second - anti-clockwise - beam successfully circled the ring after 1400 BST.

The super-collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel.

The 6.2 billion euros Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine is designed to smash protons together with cataclysmic force and experts say it is the biggest scientific experiment in human history.

Scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics and answer questions about the universe and its origins 13.7 billion years ago.

"My first thought was one of relief," Lyn Evans, LHC project leader, told journalists after the beam finished its first circuit.

"It is a machine of enormous complexity and can go wrong at any time, but this morning has been a great start