CERN , Switzerland ( CNN ) -- Scientists Wednesday applauded as one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived got successfully underway , with protons being fired around a 27-kilometer ( 17-mile ) tunnel deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe . The Large Hadron Collider -- a $ 9 billion particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe -- was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event . While observers were left nonplussed by the anticlimactic flashing dots on a TV screen that signalled the machine 's successful test run , among teams of scientists involved around the world there were jubilant celebrations and popping champagne corks . In the coming months , the collider is expected to begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions . Skeptics , who claim that the experiment could lead to the creation of a black hole capable of swallowing the planet , failed in a legal bid to halt the project at CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research . Others have branded it a colossal waste of cash , draining resources from its multinational collaborators that could have been spent on scientific research with more tangible benefits to mankind . Sound off : What do you think of the experiment ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the project as a major achievement for Europe . `` The repercussions of this scientific investment without precedent in the history of humanity will be essential not only for the intimate knowledge of our universe , but also for the direct applications in fields as varied as intensive calculation or even medicine , '' he said . Watch as Big Bang experiment gets underway » . The collider will operate at higher energies and intensities in the next year , potentially generating enough data to make a discovery by 2009 , experts say . They say the experiment has the potential to confirm theories that physicists have been working on for decades including the possible existence of extra dimensions . They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson -- sometimes referred to as the `` God particle , '' which has never been detected , but would help explain why matter has mass . The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang , when there was a hot `` soup '' of tiny particles called quarks and gluons , to look at how the universe evolved , said John Harris , U.S. coordinator for ALICE , a huge detector specialized to analyze that question . Since this is exploratory science , the collider may uncover surprises that contradict prevailing theories , but which are just as interesting , said Joseph Lykken , theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory . `` When Columbus sails west , he thought he was going to find something . He did n't find what he thought he was going to find , but he did find something interesting , '' said Lykken , who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid , one of six experiments inside the collider complex . Why should the layperson care about this particular exploration ? Years ago , when electrons were first identified , no one knew what they were good for , but they have since transformed our entire economy , said Howard Gordon , deputy research program manager for the collider 's ATLAS experiment . `` The transformative effect of this research will be to understand the world we live in much better , '' said Gordon , at Brookhaven National Laboratory . `` It 's important for just who we are , what we are . '' Fears have emerged that the collider could produce black holes that could suck up anything around them -- including the whole Earth . Such fears prompted legal actions in the U.S. and Europe to halt the operation of the Large Hadron Collider , alleging safety concerns regarding black holes and other phenomena that could theoretically emerge . Although physicists acknowledge that the collider could , in theory , create small black holes , they say they do not pose any risk . A study released Friday by CERN scientists explains that any black hole created would be tiny , and would not have enough energy to stick around very long before dissolving . Five collider collaborators who did not pen the report independently told CNN there would be no danger from potential black holes . John Huth , who works on the collider 's ATLAS experiment , called such fears `` baloney '' in a recent interview , and noted that in normal physics , even if the black hole were stable , it could just pass through the Earth without being detected or without interacting at all . `` The gravitational force is so weak that you 'd have to wait many , many , many , many , many lifetimes of the universe before one of these things could [ get ] big enough to even get close to being a problem , '' said Huth , professor of physics at Harvard University . CNN 's Elizabeth Landau contributed to this story .
Startup has been eagerly awaited by 9,000 physicists around the world . It 's the largest particle accelerator in the world and costs about $ 9 billion . The goal is to create a new type of energy called " dark matter, " which would be invisible but could explain why there are so many galaxies out there that we can't see with our eyes (