The four middle school students that are part of the ILC Club (part of Iwate Nippo’s JAPAN ILC 2030 Project) visited CERN on the outskirts of Geneva on the afternoon of August 1st. There, they were dazzled by this humongous project that aims to uncover the answers to the universe’s mysteries.

The club went on a general tour of the CERN Control Center, which oversees the Large Hadron Collider’s operations 24 hours a day, and ATLAS, the world’s largest particle detector. They also learned about CERN’s history and role.

Leading the tour was Prof. Osamu Sasaki, a researcher from Japan’s KEK currently working at CERN (and originally from the Esashi area of Oshu City, Iwate), Assistant Prof. Yuto Aoki (also from KEK), and Prof. Masaya Ishino from the International Center for Elementary Particle Physics at the University of Tokyo.

Ms. Hiramatsu said, “CERN has an unimaginable scale. I thought that science was a difficult field, but I think it’s cool seeing how much fun researchers have at their jobs.”

The ILC Club will also visit CERN on August 2nd, and leave for home from Geneva International Airport on the afternoon on August 3rd. They will arrive in Japan on the afternoon of August 4th.