After more than two decades of searching, scientists have finally observed a phenomenon in a hot and dense particle 'soup' similar to that which filled the cosmos moments after the Big Bang. The observation could help cosmologists better understand the incredibly hot and dense state of the universe in its earliest moments.
The world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), regularly creates this so-called quark-gluon plasma by smashing together the atomic nuclei of heavy elements like lead and generating sprays of particles called jets, from which this hot and dense particle soup emerges. This is necessary because in the modern universe, quarks and gluons, referred to as "partons," are only ever found together comprising particles like protons and neutrons. Thus, it takes the kind of energy generated by smashing atoms together at near-light-speeds to free these partons and generate the hot 'soup' known as quark-gluon plasma.
