Scientists Close in on 'God Particle'

CERN

Dec. 10, 2011: Two high-energy photons shown as red towers are smashed together in the LHC. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision -- possible evidence in the hunt for the Higgs Boson.

Researchers working at the world's largest atom smasher in Geneva have found tantalizing hints of the tiny, elemental bit of matter that has been labeled "the brick that built the universe" and "the god particle" -- but stopped short of announcing the discovery of the tiny particle.

The Higgs Boson is believe to have emerged from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and have brought much of the rest of the flying debris together to form galaxies, stars and planets. The element is a crucial component of the "Standard Model" -- the all-encompassing physics theory of how the cosmos as we know it works at its basic level -- one that scientists have spent decades and billions of dollars hunting for.

Yet no one has convincingly claimed to have glimpsed the Higgs Boson, let alone proved that it actually exists.

"ATLAs sees a small excess at a Higgs mass of 126 GeV

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