Roser said Fermilab is not waiting decades, however, to dig deeper into the sub-atomic world.

“Energy matters, and so the higher the energy, the deeper you can probe these different particles to see whether or not there is a substructure inside these particles,” he said.

To get that higher energy, Technical Division scientist Andy Hocker is working with physicists at Fermilab to build the next-generation particle accelerator - one that someday will make the LHC obsolete.

“What we are planning to build here at Fermilab is basically one of the most powerful proton accelerators in the world. We won’t be at the energy frontier anymore, but at the intensity frontier as we call it. An intense beam of protons that is basically unparalleled in the world,” said Hocker.

Instead of particles being accelerated around a vast circle, as with the LHC, Fermilab’s new linear device - housed in a facility about 31 kilometers long - would aim two particle beams in a straight line at each other, much like two bullets fired to collide with each other at the speed of light.

“The advantage of a linear accelerator is that you don’t have to keep those particles on a stable orbit. It’s much easier to send something in a straight line than it is to keep it in orbit in a circle,” said Hocker.

While the technology for the new International Linear Collider might be developed at Fermilab in the United States, engineering physicist Elvin Harms said that if it is approved, it might not be built there.