Less than two months ago news came that a beam of neutrinos sent from CERN Super Proton Synchrotron to the National Laboratories of Gran Sasso had traveled faster than light. The result of the Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracking Apparatus) experiment was really amazing and scientific research is based on the repeatability of the experiments, more than ever in this case. Therefore the same team of scientists have considered it necessary to repeat this test and the new results confirm the original ones.

Neutrino beams have traveled again through the about 730 km between the two laboratories easily passing through the rocks and any other material because these particles interact with common matter so weakly that they don’t require particle accelerators or tunnels of any kind.

The second experiment was carried out a little differently from the first to further reduce the risk of errors in the measurements. In fact this time the neutrinos beams had a shorter duration and there was a greater interval between them to ensure that the detected neutrinos were really the right ones. The result however was the same.

It’s certainly important that the results of the two experiments are consistent but obviously this is not yet enough to be sure of an extraordinary event such as exceeding the speed of light by neutrinos. It’s for this reason that at Gran Sasso teams of scientists who are working on two other experiments have already scheduled for the next year an independent review of the Opera results.

[ad name=”Google Adsense 300″]

In the rest of the world scientists aren’t just watching so in the U.S.A. the MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search ago) experiment and in Japan the T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) experiment will conduct independent tests on neutrinos. Obviously these types of experiments require an adequate preparation and the time necessary to carry them out and to analyze the results.

Presumably, only during the next year we’ll have new information on the new tests that will be carried out and on the further reviews conducted on those already done. After the first extraordinary result there was a lot of skepticism and many comments focussed on the possible errors. Now that the same result was obtained again after having thoroughly analyzed the elements of the first experiment it will be really interesting to see what will happen in other tests carried out in other places of the world with a different equipment.