Scientists are looking to build a huge underground particle accelerator that would be 62 miles long and circle the city of Geneva.
Gathering in Switzerland last week, researchers considered the project, which would be quadruple the size of CERN's Large Hadron Collider, Science Recorder reported.
The tunnel, which would reach to the Jura mountains in the west and the Alps in the east and would go under Lake Geneva, would be the LHC's successor.
Standing as the biggest "particle-crunching machine" worldwide, the LHC only began operating a few years ago but took decades to complete from design to finish.
The next particle accelerator needs to be in the works soon because the process of building one takes so long, CERN Director General Dr. Rolf Heuer reportedly said at the meeting.
"We have very long lead times, because our projects are ambitious, and they need a lot of research and development," said Heuer, according to BBC News.
"Take as an example the LHC. It is just three years into full swing, but the real discussion on the LHC started in 1983; the first meeting on the physics started in 1984. And the first data were taken in 2009. So we need a long lead time. And that's why we start now to kick off this project."
The new collider's size and location as well as which particles will be smashed in it are all up for debate, according to BBC News.
Whatever happens with the LHC, which was used to confirm the Higgs boson in 2012, scientists have to begin planning now for its successor, according to CERN spokesman Guido Tonelli.
"If nothing appears in the next phase of the LHC, we have to move to higher energies, because there we might find solutions to the big questions that are still open," Tonelli said, according to BBC.
"If we do find something, we know that at the LHC, we might be able to see the 'tail of the dinosaur,' and we would need a machine with much higher energy to see the 'entire animal.' So I accept we don't yet know the details of the next accelerator; but the need for one is clear now."
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