Deep in the Oxfordshire countryside sits a fantastical proposition: a vast solar panel-clad circle, as enchanting in its way as Stonehenge on the other side of the North Wessex Downs. The Diamond Light Source synchrotron has unlocked a world of previously impossible scientific investigations. Inside the giant ring, 738m in circumference, electrons are accelerated through sets of magnets until they reach almost the speed of light. As they whizz around, they generate an extraordinary brightness some 10 billion times greater than the sun. One researcher dubs the synchrotron a “Disneyland of science”, and it’s easy to see why: the result is even more illuminatory than the firework display over the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle.

The predominantly X-ray light generated by the synchrotron’s super-excited electrons is then diverted from the ring like sparks shooting from a Catherine wheel. The 35 resulting light tracks, known as “beamlines”, are used to study all sorts of materials and phenomena at the atomic scale. Each beamline is a theme park attraction of its own. In one, researchers measure the radiation contamination of concrete from the area of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan. In another, scientists work out how to preserve timbers from the Tudor naval ship, the Mary Rose, whose wreck was raised from the seabed in 1982.

The beamline that most intrigued me, when I visited last year, was being used for a pioneering project studying the hidden history of bugs. I was greeted by Professor Anjali Goswami, an evolutionary biologist with London’s Natural History Museum, and her Diamond Light Source colleague Christoph Rau. They showed me how a blue robotic arm lowers each insect sample on to the analysis platform. The synchrotron’s powerful X-rays pick out the intricacies of even tiny creatures.