Meet RHIC the world’s newest and biggest particle accelerator for nuclear physics. RHIC stands for Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and it is located less than 2 hours away NYC. Few would guess that behind this unsuspecting gate is a science lab that has won 6 nobel prizes already. RHIC lives at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island. The most interesting stuff happening there is particle collision which means shooting packets of high speed ions, like gold, at each other. When protons collide at speeds near light speed (yeah, that fast) they bust open and all sorts of stuff comes out. Massive detectors layered with plates of steel and computer chips record the results of these collisions. Incredible electronics and programming gives scientists a look at what the universe was ike seconds after the big bang.

For more about RHIC check out Brookhaven’s website: http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/