CERN Releases 300TB of LHC Measurement Data

CERN has released much of the data collected by the Large Hadron Collider to the public. Interested parties can dig through 300 TB of data collected by the CMS detector in the year 2011.

The datasets contain data on the collision of protons with an energy of 7 TeV. The data has been released because CERN has now analyzed it itself, and the organization now thinks it is time for others to gain access to it. Anyone interested in the proton collisions should head to CERN’s Open Data Portal. There, simulations can be done with the built-in software, in which images can also be made. CERN has put an example of this online itself.

Scientists can download the so-called primary datasets to be able to conduct research. Other interested parties, such as schools, can download the derived datasets. This distinction is made because the derived datasets are much easier to use and thus require less expertise for the analysis. According to CERN, there are positive experiences with the release of data, including through collaborations with researchers from the technology institute MIT.

Incidentally, the LHC has been colliding protons with energy levels of 13 TeV since last year, but the released data comes from 2011, when the collisions were even less powerful. After an upgrade in 2022, it is intended that much more powerful bundles of particles will be shot at each other.

In the scientific world, sharing datasets from research is controversial. For example, many institutions are not prepared to share source data, partly for reasons of competition. The EU recently announced a major research program to better access and link scientific data. In this way the conclusions of the researchers can be validated and research must be prevented from being unnecessarily repeated.