Collaborators at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have all reported signs of quark-gluon plasma, an extreme state of matter, in oxygen collisions experiments. A year after the first collisions of oxygen at the LHC, the main LHC Collaborations – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – have each reported signs of the state of matter known as quark–gluon plasma (QGP). This is a state of matter that is believed to have existed in the first millionths of seconds after the Big Bang, meaning this research could lead into valuable findings about the earliest moments of our universe’s existence. It was previously thought QGP could only be observed using heavier ions Under intense pressure and temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun, composite particles break down into quarks and the gluons that hold them together. Lead ions, which are over 200 times heavier than the protons typically collided at the LHC, was thought to be the only way to recreate the conditions needed to form QGP. But this theory was challenged by the ALICE Collaboration, who reported a new sign of …