Researchers at Cern, the home of Large Hadron Collider, announced on Wednesday the discovery of a new particle consistent with the long sought-after Higgs boson.
The Higgs boson is the last undiscovered particle predicted to exist by the standard model of matter that scientists have been hunting for almost half a century.
CERN scientists, reporting at a conference in Geneva, said their search for the 'God particle,' a subatomic particle believed to give all matter size and shape, has proved successful.
They claimed to have seen a "bump" in their data corresponding to a particle weighing in at 125.3 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) - about 133 times heavier than the proton at the heart of every atom.
The scientists said they had observed the new particle in collisions in the world's biggest atom smasher.
Despite the strong indications, more work will be needed to confirm that what the CERN sees is a Higgs, which would be one of the biggest scientific discoveries of the century, reports say.
For years physicists have sought the particle, known as Higgs boson, to help understand why particles have mass.
Peter Higgs, after whom the particle is named, attended the historic Geneva conference, where he congratulated "everyone involved in this achievement."
by RTT Staff Writer
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