Engineers working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have successfully injected beams of particles into two sections of the vast machine.
An LHC spokesperson said this was the first time particle beams had been inside the LHC since it was shut down late in September 2008.
Scientists working on the giant particle accelerator described the success as "a milestone".
They plan to circulate a beam around the 27km-long tunnel in November.
On 23 and 25 October, beams of protons and of lead ions were injected into the LHC ring, and successfully guided both clockwise and anti-clockwise through two of the eight sectors. Each sector is approximately 3.5km long.
The extreme cold allows the magnets inside the LHC, which align and accelerate the beam, to become "superconducting". This means they channel electric current with zero resistance and very little power loss.
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