Spotting telltale tracks

The detectors are arranged in layers around the point where the two particle beams smash together. The layers contain thousands of sensors, and each layer is primed to spot different properties of the particles from collisions.

When the beams smash together, particles collide and different particles are produced that fire off in all directions. They shower through the layers of the detector.

And because each type of particle behaves in a certain way as it passes through the detector, the path it makes can be used to identify it.