Particles appear to travel faster than light: OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos
Friday, September 23, 2011 - 08:30
in Astronomy & Space
Scientists with the OPERA experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN 730 km away at Italy's INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, are presenting surprising new results that show neutrinos traveling faster than light. The OPERA result is based on the observation of over 15,000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature's cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established.