Dark matter. It's apparently all around us,
making up 27% of everything that 'is' in the
universe, with millions of WIMPS or Weakly
Interacting Massive particles, shooting through
us every second. But we can't see it. We can't
even detect it. It is, for the moment, theoretical.
But the elusive phenomenon has increasingly
fewer places to hide, with experiments ongoing
in space, inside particle accelerators and
deep underground to pinpoint it.
One of those experiments is Lux, based at
the Sanford Underground Research Facility.
The Large Underground Xenon array is set up
to detect the rare and brief instances where
dark matter collides with regular matter.
And an initial run of the machine for 90 days
earleir this year proved that it's the most
sensitive array in the world. So sensitive,
it's already discounted several earleir theorised
dark matter spots. Because if they had happened,
Lux WOULD have spotted it too.
But not spotting dark matter isn't the same
as spotting it, right? Well, maybe. But the
team are confident that they're getting increasingly
close to 'dialling in' on Dark matter, and
have high hopes that the next 300 day run,
starting early in 2014, will help secure proof
of dark matter by the end of the decade.
