The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is known for finding the Higgs boson, has now come up with another new and unusual particle. The team of scientists working at the LHC, the world’s largest particle accelerator, recently started the second round of experiments in which they used far more energy than used in first experiment back in 2012.

Pentaquarks is an exotic form of matter, which was first predicted back in 1979. LHCb spokesperson Guy Wilkinson said in a statement that the pentaquark represents a way to aggregate quarks, namely the fundamental constituents of ordinary protons and neutrons, in a pattern that has never been observed before in over fifty years of experimental searches.

As per experts, everything around us is made of atoms, which are mode of a cloud of electrons orbiting a heavy nucleus made of protons and neutrons. But since the 1960s, scientists have also known that protons and neutrons are made up of even smaller particles named quarks.

Quarks are held together by something called the ‘strong force’, the strongest known force in nature in fact. Experiments conducted in 1968 provided the evidence for the quark model. If protons are hit hard enough, the strong force can be overcome and the proton smashed apart.

Pentaquarks are incredibly difficult to see; they are very rare and very unstable. This means that if it is possible to stick five quarks together, they won’t stay together for very long.

The LHC experiment helped researchers make the discovery by looking in detail at other exotic hadrons produced in the collisions and the way they had broken apart.