Tevatron, the world's second largest particle accelerator, is going to be closed for good on Friday.

However, Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory will still be crunching data from the collider for at least more two years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.).

Tevatron had been the world's largest particle accelerator until 2009, falling behind only to the Switzerland-based Large Hadron Collider of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). Massive amounts of data were collected from the Tevatron's underground.

Building another big particle project in the U.S. currently seems impossible considering the crisis of funds. So physicists from Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory and scientists from all over the country are requesting the D.O.E. to fund the existing intensity frontier, which explores fundamental particles and forces of nature using intense particle beams and highly sensitive detectors, as described by the Fermilab.

The D.O.E. Office of Science is currently considering the establishment of a major underground science facility to study underground particle physics.

In 1995, the Tevatron discovered the Top Quark, a particle which is one of the fundamental constituents of matter, but the Tevatron has made phenomenal contributions to particle physics, believes CERN's director general Rolf Heuer.

Some of the Tevatron employees will be transferred to other initiatives at the lab, such as Project X, the MicroBooNe and the Illinois Accelerator Research Center.

There is a certain sadness that the wonderful story is coming to an end, said Fermilab, director Pier Oddone. But this is really a celebration. This has been such a wonderful run. I wish the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to have as rich a life as the Tevatron has had here.