Comet Enthusiast

Researchers on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, have seen hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds of existence. The CMS detector has captured a signal thought to represent this quark-gluon plasma. Quarks are generally trapped in groups of two or three by the gluons that bind them, but in the moments after the big bang, the universe was so hot that they could escape, becoming a fluid of free quarks and gluons.

Whether this really is a quark-gluon plasma is still unknown, but the CMS team hopes to find an answer shortly. "What is happening may be fully understood in the next few months or year," says CMS spokesman Guido Tonelli.