Search for the 'God particle' closer

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The Large Hadron Collider has produced a pair of Z bosons, a step in the search for the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle, European scientists say.

The achievement is based on data released by the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration, designed to detect a wide range of particles and phenomena produced in the LHC's high-energy proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions, RIA Novosti reported.

"Seeing this first pair is an important step in the giant collider's hunt for the Higgs boson because the generation and analysis of many more such events could provide one of the key signatures of the elusive Higgs," physicsworld.com said.

The Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle," was hypothesized in the 1960s to explain how particles acquire mass.

Discovering the particle could explain how matter appeared in the split-second after the Big Bang.

More than 2,000 physicists from hundreds of universities and laboratories in 34 countries have taken part in the $5.6 billion LHC project since 1984, RIA Novosti said.