A New Particle?

Back in September, you probably heard about that new particle accelerator in Europe that lots of (uninformed) people believed was going to end the world. Well, it kind of broke down before we had the opportunity to accidentally make black holes that would swallow us up. (Actually the way it broke and needs to be fixed is kind of cool: the accelerator runs at about -450 degrees Farenheit and needs to be warmed up so people can go in the room to fix it.)

In a way though, that breakdown is good news for us, since that means that the United States' old particle accelerator is still the most powerful in the world (until next spring when the European one is fixed). And on top of all this our old busted particle accelerator may have DISCOVERED A NEW PARTICLE! There were no predictions about its existence -- though one of the lead scientists on the project thinks it might be related to a developing theory of dark matter.

The suggestion of a new particle is actually really controversial; it may well turn out that it was an old particle doing some new tricks for us. In fact, nearly a third of the scientists working on the project don't want their names included in an article that's coming out soon about their findings. It's way too early to know whether it was a new particle or some older one. Only time will tell.

[On a related note: Another group of scientists are searching for dark matter right now, deep in a mine in Minnesota. The article is really informative and can help you to understand what dark matter is all about.]