Cern has revealed that the gremlin that took down the Large Hadron Collider was actually a faulty transformer.

Although the launch went off without a hitch (or the end of the world) the LHC has not actually collided any particles yet after a problem shut down operations.

Cern has now revealed that the reason for the delay was a transformer in the cooling plant for the LHC.

Exchanged

"The transformer, weighing 30 tonnes and with a rating of 12 MVA, was exchanged over the weekend, said Cern in a press release.

"During this process, the cryogenics system was put into a standby mode with the two sectors kept at around 4.5K.

"Since the beginning of the week the cryogenics team have been busy re-cooling the magnets and preparing for operation with beam, which is currently forecast for today."

It's taken a while to fix, although you could probably posit that 30 tonne transformers are thin on the ground – but now the scientists can get on with Armageddon.