19.04.02 - Exotic particle discovery from LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is widely regarded as one of humanity's greatest scientific achievements. The 17 km long accelerator smashes particles together at high speeds, and looks at the products to search for new physics. So far we've learned a tonne about the smallest things in nature, such as quarks - which are tiny particles that make up the atoms that compose people, planets, stars, and everything else we can see. A few years ago, physicists discovered strange new particles known as pentaquarks. We knew they were made up of five quarks bound together, but their properties and structure were a mystery. Now, brand new results from the LHC provide significant insight into the nature of these puzzling particles. Tomasz Skwarnicki, from Syracuse University (in New York) told Ben McAlister all about it, starting with the initial discovery of pentaquarks...