Tevatron Shutdown at Fermilab Friday: Audience Watches Last Run

UPDATE: Our full story from the Tevatron shutdown ceremony is now posted. To read it, click .

It's the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

On Friday afternoon the began the shutdown process for the Tevatron.

The Tevatron is the second-highest energy proton-antiproton collider, or particle accelerator.

It was the world's largest particle accelerator until 2009, falling behind only to the Switzerland-based Large Hadron Collider. Massive amounts of data have been collected from the Tevatron's cycles, which take place underground.

Unfortunately the Tevatron, like many people and programs of these recent years, was . The lab did not receive enough funding to run the accelerator and officials hope to save money with its closure.

Not all is lost with this shutdown. Some of the Tevatron employees will be transferred to other initiatives at the lab, such as , the MicroBooNe and the Illinois Accelerator Research Center.

Here's a list of other projects, courtesy of the lab's Office of Communication:

• The NOvA neutrino experiment, currently under construction at Fermilab and in Minnesota, which will use the world’s most powerful neutrino beam.
• The Dark Energy Camera, which will have the largest optical survey power in the world and will carry out the largest galaxy survey. The Fermilab-built camera is currently being installed on a telescope in Chile.
• The CMS experiment in Europe at the Large Hadron Collider. Fermilab is the lead U.S. institution in the experiment and supports hundreds of U.S. researchers through a remote operation center for CMS analysis and ongoing R&D for future upgrades.

Scientists will also be processing data from this last stretch of the Tevatron's run for years to come.

"The Tevatron has exceeded all expectations," Fermilab Director Pier Oddone said in a statement posted Jan. 10, 2011 on the lab’s website. "The life of this legendary machine has been marked by historic discoveries made possible by its innovative accelerator and detector technologies."

Check back with batavia.patch.com after the shutdown for full coverage.

To read our first full-length story of the shutdown announcement, click .

A live broadcast of the Tevatron shutdown from the Main Control Room, CDF and DZero was available Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. To see it, click here.