Photo: FerdinandoGior, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What does CERN stand for?

CERN is the European Center for Nuclear Research, home to the world-famous particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) –  that led to the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle in 2012. Now scientists at CERN say they have observed a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks,” adding to the list of new hadrons found at the LHC. They plan to restart the particle accelerator in July 2022 to understand cosmic unknowns like dark matter better.