Scientists at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have just made an exciting discovery that could change how we understand the tiniest building blocks of our universe. They observed a super-rare event at the subatomic level, involving a particle called a kaon, which might help us learn more about the standard model of particle physics.

What’s Happening at CERN?

As part of an experiment known as NA62, researchers looked closely at how kaons decay, or break down, into other particles. This particular form of decay is incredibly rare—so rare that fewer than one in ten billion kaons decay this way! Scientists call this specific decay the “golden channel,” and the standard model of particle physics predicts it should happen, but they wanted to see it in action.

Cristina Lazzeroni, a physicist from the University of Birmingham who worked on this experiment, explained, “If we see something different from what the standard model predicts, it could mean we’re looking at new p...