Building a lunar
collider of this
size could enable
entirely new
fields of study in
quantum physics,
particle physics,
and string theory.14 January/February 2022
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION CREATED BY ALYSE MARKEL USING GETTY IMAGESMachines
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// B Y C A R O L I N E D E L B E R T //C
AST YOUR MIND FORWARD 150 YEARS
and picture a truly wild piece of infra-
structure: a particle collider that circles
the entire moon like a belt. It might sound
outlandish, but the physicists who pro-
posed this idea last summer say that the
vast structure could be possible in the
ne x t c ent u r y.
Particle colliders propel charged particles like
protons and electrons together at high speeds. On
Earth, some are circular, like the Large Hadron
Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. Others are built in
straight lines. Both designs help particles reach phe-
nomenal speeds. The energ y from the collisions can
create matter in the form of new particles, includ-
ing some of the largest ones that we know of (like the
Higgs boson, a fundamental particle that helps give
other particles mass).
So having the extra space to build a bigger,
more powerful particle collider could potentially
lead scientists to the discovery of other new parti-
cles. These particles help to glue together disparate
physics ideas and move us toward a more complete
understanding of the universe. A megastructure on
the moon, for its part, could enable particle accel-
eration that reaches 14 quadrillion electron volts,
or about 1,000 times more energy than the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC)—the most powerful parti-
cle collider on Earth.
“We have big open questions in science and par-
ticle physics and we don’t have any more theoretical
hints as to where we should go to solve them,” says
James Beacham, a particle physicist working for
Duke University, who helped theorize the lunar col-
lider. By building an enormous collider, we increase
the likelihood of discovering the next Higgs boson.
We can also continue to study the birth of the uni-
verse by “rewinding” another hair’s breadth toward
the Big Bang.
Building this kind of massive infrastructure on
the moon may seem like an insurmountable chal-
lenge. But, Beacham says, the steps to do so are both
practical and possible.
STEP 1: Send the workforce to the moon for sur-
veys. First, scientists will need to see what materials
are available on the moon—and what they’ll need to
bring from Earth. The collider could use regular,
supercooled magnets or “higher-temperature”
(approximately 100°Kelvin or –173°Celsius) mag-
nets, so researchers need to determine whether orHow to Build
a Particle
Collider on
the Moon—
And Why We
Should