Particles that originally appeared to be moving faster than the speed of light were likely actually going slower, according to the latest results of a new experiment out of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the agency reported on Friday.
Back in September 2011, CERN’s OPERA particle physics experiment shocked the world in finding that neutrinos, a type of uncharged particle, were moving faster than the speed of light, in apparent defiance of Einstein’s theory of relativity.
But CERN recently re-measured the neutrinos speed in a different experiment called ICARUS and found that the neutrinos were moving at about the speed of light, not any faster.
“The evidence is beginning to point towards the OPERA result being an artefact of the measurement,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci in a statement. In essence CERN believes that the initial results were due to a measuring error.
The new results further vindicate Einstein’s theory of relativity.
