To hunt for dark matter, researchers are doing everything from burying tanks of xenon deep underground to sending balloons over Antarctica. When will their creativity pay off?
Physics
February 8, 2023
Michael Kirkham
If it passes Antarctica later this year, you may be greeted with a strange sight. If you take your eyes off the penguins, you might notice stadium-sized balloons floating in the sky. What follows underneath is the latest crazy-sounding experiment designed to search for the most insane thing scientists have ever dreamed of: dark matter.
About 85% of the matter in the universe is called dark matter because it is thought to be a special kind of matter that does not reflect, emit, or absorb light. As far as we know, the only force this virtual thing is designed to reliably interact with is gravity, and it’s very difficult to detect.Astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin Catherine Fries, of the Still waiting.”Obviously, it’s a harder problem than we thought.”
Faced with that harsh truth, dark matter hunters have become more inventive than ever. , measuring the linearity of lightning, planning to detect nanoscale bursts of minerals, examining ancient rocks for dark matter scars, and checking the James Webb space. Observation of a “dark star” with a telescope. All of this begs the question: Is the dark matter search proposal too far away, and at what point would you consider giving up the chase?
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