After five decades of research, scientists have finally discovered that the enigmatic pentaquark particles really do exist. The discovery was made by the world's largest atom smasher, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which ensconces deep underground of France and Switzerland's border, when it was upgraded in April following its two-year maintenance.

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In the study published in the journal Physical Review Letters, a team of researchers with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) reported the discovery of a new kind of subatomic particle known as pentaquark. According to ABC News, the existence of pentaquark particles, which were first predicted in the 1960s, significantly means a new form of matter has been discovered.

As defined, a quark is the term use for the building blocks that make up hadrons such as protons and neutrons.

For decades, the actual discovery of pentaquark particle, which is a collection of five quarks bound together to form an exotic state of matter, had baffled scientists since only hadrons with two or three quarks were known to exist. There are also pieces of evidence that suggested the existence of some subatomic particles made of four quarks. But in just over a year, the LHCb experiment has exposed two five-quark particles, Science News revealed.

Even though the pentaquark particles have been long theorized by experts, conclusively establishing a true detection is a hard thing. As per Discovery News, experimental searches for this elusive 5-quark particle kept drawing blanks and any ambiguously positive detection was quickly shutdown by follow-up experiments. But now, scientists are hopeful after a strong signal in the LHCb detector has led to the new subatomic particle discovery.

"The pentaquark is not just any new particle," LHCb experiment spokesman Guy Wilkinson said in a CERN press release. "It 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. Studying its properties may allow us to understand better how ordinary matter, the protons and neutrons from which we're all made, is constituted."

As of the moment, there is still some vagueness surrounding pentaquark's configuration. However, the discovery is a good place to start in proving its existence. And as the new-upgraded LHC continues to examine its signal, more details behind the nature of the enigmatic pentaquark particle will soon be revealed.

TagsPentaquark, Pentaquark Discovery, Pentaquark Particles, CERN, LHC, CERN LHC