It's rare that a science story leads the news but this one is a shocker. According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it is not possible for matter to travel faster than the speed of light.The cosmic speed limit was set in stone largely because it would take an astronomical amount of energy to exceed lightspeed.

Much of modern physics is based on Einstein's work. Now there is a possibility that Einstein was wrong and that physics may have to rethink the concept of matter and energy:

The science world was left in shock when workers at the world's largest physics lab announced they had recorded subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light

If the findings are proven to be accurate, they would overturn one of the pillars of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the way the universe and everything within it works.

Einstein's theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claim they have recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second.

The results have so astounded researchers that American and Japanese scientists have been asked to verify the results before they are confirmed as a discovery.

Neutrinos have long been suspected of being able to travel beyond light speed but the ability to measure their speed accurately has only recently been possible thanks to the CERN lab. This may be one of those moments in science history that acts as a hinge that opens the door to a burst of new discoveries, changing the way we understand the universe - and ourselves.