Less than a year after the 42nd known Mersenne prime was reported (MathWorld
headline news, February 26, 2005), GIMPS project organizer George Woltman is
reporting in an email message that a new Mersenne prime has been reported to
the GIMPS server. A verification run on the number has been started, and will
take a week or two to complete. The potential prime was identified by an
experienced GIMPS participant and no errors were reported during the run, so
it seems likely that a new Mersenne prime has indeed been found. While the
exponent of the potential prime has not yet been revealed, it has has fewer
than ten million digits.