In another key step toward the return of experiments to the Large Hadron Collider, the machine's operators ran the first collisions at its new top energy: 13 Tera-electronVolts. This is the planned energy for all experiments in the coming year, and it's a level that's 60 percent higher than any previous collisions performed there.

These collisions were an accidental byproduct of work meant to test out the LHC's hardware, specifically devices called collimators. Collimators are pieces of metal that extend to the outside edges of the beams of protons that circulate through the LHC. They shave off any protons that have strayed from the main line of the beam, keeping them from hitting and possibly damaging the equipment.

To fully test the hardware, the people running the LHC had to check whether the collimators performed properly while the proton beams were operating in collision mode. A necessary byproduct of these were actual collisions. And if you're reading this, it appears nothing bad happened at the new energies.

Testing will continue for just a few more weeks before full experimentation is set to begin in early June.