GENEVA. It might have only just found the elusive ''God particle'', but the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory, near Geneva, is to have a $A1.82 billion upgrade at the end of the decade to investigate the mystery of dark matter.

Scientists believe dark matter holds the universe together. Yet while it is all around us, making up 84 per cent of all matter, it has never been seen as it does not produce or reflect light.

The tunnel in the Large Hadron Collider. Credit:CERN

Now scientists hope that a 10-fold boost to the power of the beams of particles being smashed together inside CERN's 27-kilometre tunnels will allow them to create and detect dark matter.

Other experiments at the laboratory will continue until the end of this year, when the collider will close for 20 months for repairs.