A piece of one of the famous CERN colliders, the machines designed to unlock some of the fundamental secrets of the universe, has been acquired by Scotland's national museum.

The 1.5 tonne copper cavity, from the CERN's Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider, will go on display next year at the National Museum of Scotland's new science and technology galleries.

The copper cavity has been donated to the museum in Chambers Street, Edinburgh by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The museum said that the cavity resembles a diving helmet from Victorian science fiction.

However, despite its size and weight, it was only a "tiny" part of the collider, which was used for experiments between 1989 and 2000.

LEP was constructed in 1989, in a 27km-long circular tunnel 100m underground at CERN's research centre near Geneva, Switzerland.

Tacye Phillipson, senior curator of Modern Science at National Museums Scotland, said: "CERN is at the forefront of current research into some of the most fundamental questions of physics, the very building blocks of the universe. "The science and technology collections at National Museums Scotland reflect in various ways our efforts to understand these questions, and so we are delighted to be able to present a tangible, material link to this remarkable work in the forthcoming new galleries.

"What this particular object illustrates above all is the sheer quality of engineering required to enable the kind of scientific experiments carried out at CERN."

Peter Clarke, from the University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy, who worked on experiments carried out on LEP at CERN, said the cavity would help explain to the public what the LEP did.

"It's a wonderful museum object which is very close to my heart as LEP was where I did some of my most exciting research," he said.

"While most people will have heard of CERN, it can be quite difficult to explain what a particle collider actually does, but this cavity can illustrate this very easily.

"To have one of the accelerating cavities on display at the National Museum of Scotland can only be positive for scientific understanding and engagement."

In total, there were 128 of these accelerating cavities in LEP, which conducted research for 11 years.

Many are now used in science education and demonstrations.

LEP also provided evidence for the Higgs boson, whose existence was eventually proven by experiments using LEP's successor, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The six new galleries are part of a £14.1 million project which will create ten new galleries displaying National Museums Scotland's collections of science and technology, decorative art, design and fashion.

Showcasing over 3,000 objects, display space for these exhibits will increase by more than 40%.

Displays and objects will highlight the contributions of Scottish scientists such as Sir James Black, Sir David Jack, James Clerk Maxwell, Sir David Brewster and Professor Peter Higgs as well as stories and objects from around the world.