{"id":376372,"date":"2026-08-30T03:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=376372"},"modified":"2026-08-30T03:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:16:07","slug":"cerns-alice-reports-smaller-big-bangs-oxygen-and-neon-make-quark-gluon-plasma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/cerns-alice-reports-smaller-big-bangs-oxygen-and-neon-make-quark-gluon-plasma\/","title":{"rendered":"CERN\u2019s ALICE reports smaller Big Bangs: oxygen and neon make quark-gluon plasma"},"content":{"rendered":"

CERN\u2019s ALICE experiment has released new results from light-ion collisions run in July 2025, and they point to something striking: smashups involving oxygen-16 and neon-20 seem to produce quark-gluon plasma<\/a><\/strong>, the ultra-hot state thought to have filled the universe just after the Big Bang.<\/p>\n

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What changes here is the scale. Physicists have usually needed much heavier ions, like lead or gold, to see this. But in 3 billion<\/strong> oxygen-oxygen collisions and 400 million neon-neon collisions recorded in July 2025, ALICE observed the same collective, fluid-like expansion, even though oxygen and neon nuclei are less than one-tenth the mass of lead. That pushes the \u201clittle big bang\u201d boundary lower, adds to the case that real QGP-like behavior can survive in much smaller systems, and matches the August 2026 reports from the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb collaborations.<\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s a nuclear-structure angle to it, too. The particle spray appears to reflect the shapes of the nuclei<\/strong>, themselves: oxygen came out looking more rounded, while neon looked more elongated, closer to a bowling pin. If you follow CERN or early-universe physics, this result is worth your time, especially now that helium-4 is in the mix as a possible next test for where quark-gluon plasma formation finally gives out.<\/p>\n\n

You can read the study in Physical Review Letters.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CERN\u2019s ALICE experiment has released new results from light-ion collisions run in July 2025, and they point to something striking: smashups involving oxygen-16 and neon-20 seem to produce quark-gluon plasma, the ultra-hot state thought to have filled the universe just after the Big Bang. What changes here is the scale. Physicists have usually needed much … Continue reading “CERN\u2019s ALICE reports smaller Big Bangs: oxygen and neon make quark-gluon plasma”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9328,"featured_media":376371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-376372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376373,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376372\/revisions\/376373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376372"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=376372"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=376372"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=376372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}