CERN Recreates Matter From the Universe’s Earliest Moments

Physicists at CERN and the Niels Bohr Institute have recreated primordial matter from the early universe using surprisingly light atomic nuclei.

By colliding oxygen and neon at extreme speeds, they produced quark-gluon plasma and uncovered evidence that the neon nucleus has an unusual bowling-pin shape. The results offer a new way to study the strong force and conditions shortly after the Big Bang.

This episode includes AI-generated content.