'Faster than light' experiment to be rerun

• Tweet

ROME, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A European experiment suggesting particles traveled faster than the speed of light will be rerun after experts found it may have been flawed, officials said.

Scientists reported two "anomalies" -- including a problem possibly caused by a loose cable -- in the instrumentation used to measure the speed of neutrino particles traveling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso underground particle physics laboratory near Rome, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The anomalies do not necessarily invalidate the original findings, scientists said, which called into question Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity which says nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light.

Researchers said the experiment would be repeated with after the anomalies are corrected.

"New measurements with short-pulsed beams are scheduled for May," CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said in a statement.