{"id":8845,"date":"2026-08-04T11:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/?p=8845"},"modified":"2026-08-04T11:22:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:22:43","slug":"maltese-phd-student-helps-oversee-final-moments-of-large-hadron-collider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/2026\/08\/04\/maltese-phd-student-helps-oversee-final-moments-of-large-hadron-collider\/","title":{"rendered":"Maltese PhD student helps oversee final moments of Large Hadron Collider"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young Maltese scientist helped operate the world\u2019s largest particle accelerator during its final days before it was switched off for a major upgrade.<\/p>\n

Maria Aquilina, a 26-year-old University of Malta PhD student based at CERN, was part of an international team carrying out some of the last measurements on the Large Hadron Collider.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the honour of a lifetime. To be trusted to help operate the machine during such an important moment is something I will never forget,\u201d she told\u00a0Times of Malta<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is a vast scientific machine built inside a 27-kilometre underground tunnel beneath the border between Switzerland and France. It sends tiny particles travelling around the tunnel at almost the speed of light before smashing them into one another. Scientists study what comes out of those collisions to learn more about matter and, ultimately, what the universe is made of.\u00a0 Click here to read more.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"

Scientist Maria Aquilina working on the Large Hadron Collider. Photos: Maria Aquilina<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young Maltese scientist helped operate the world\u2019s largest particle accelerator during its final days before it was switched off for a major upgrade. Maria Aquilina, a 26-year-old University of Malta PhD student based at CERN, was part of an international team carrying out some of the last measurements on the Large Hadron Collider. \u201cIt<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8845"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8848,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8845\/revisions\/8848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xjenzamalta.mt\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}