SNOLAB congratulates the CERN team, including the Canadian groups working on ATLAS, on the recent announcement of the observation of a new particle in those data collected at CERN in both the ATLAS and CMS detectors. The observed particle, at a statistically significant level of one in a few million, looks like the long-sought after Higgs boson particle, the final missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics. Much work still needs to be completed to finalise details of the new particle, and to see if it agrees perfectly with the Standard Model expectations.Dr. Nigel Smith, Director of SNOLAB expressed his excitement at the announcement. “The observation of a new particle in the ATLAS and CMS detectors, following on the hints from last year, and recent work at the Tevatron, is a tremendous achievement for particle physics. This is the culmination of decades of work by thousands of scientists, researchers and engineers around the world, and I warmly congratulate all those involved. As a dark matter researcher, I now look forward to the transition from discovery to detailed understanding of this new particle, likely the Higgs boson, and look forward to indications of new physics beyond the Standard Model!” The work that SNOLAB undertakes in direct dark matter searches is looking for particle physics beyond the Standard Model, and so we await with great interest any deviations that CERN may see in its future analyses of the Higgs boson, which may shed light on the nature and properties of the dark matter of the Universe. This discovery represents a major step forward in our understanding of why the universe exists as it does, with matter clumping together to form galaxies, stars, planets and even us.The Higgs boson is an undiscovered piece of the puzzle predicted by the Standard Model – the current accepted theory in particle physics. TRIUMF Release – Voyage of Discovery Sights What Could be the Higgs.