Scientists Home In On Mysterious Dark Matter
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| This file image shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies,and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520,formed from a violent collision of massive galaxy clusters. (AFP) |
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| This file image shows the International Space Station in the sunlight. A $2 billion cosmic ray detector on the International Space Station has found the footprint of something that could be dark matter, scientists say. (AP) |
Scientists said on Wednesday they may be close to tracking down the mysterious "dark matter" which makes up more than a quarter of the universe but has never been seen.
A final identification of what makes up the enigmatic material would solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics and open up new investigations into the possibility of multiple universes and other areas, said researchers.
Members of an international team had picked up what might be the first physical trace left by dark matter while studying cosmic rays recorded on the International Space Station, said the head of the Europe- and US-based research project Samuel Ting.
He told a packed seminar at the CERN research centre, near Geneva, the team had found a surge of positron particles that might have come from dark matter.
In the coming months, he said, the CERN-built AMS particle detector on the space station "will be able to tell us conclusively whether these positrons are a signal for dark matter or if they have some other origin".
Dark matter, once the stuff of science fiction, "is one of the most important mysteries of physics today," Ting, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 1976 Nobel physics prize winner, has written.
Sometimes called the sculptor of the universe's millions of galaxies because of the way its gravity shapes their formation, its existence has long been recognised because of the way it pushes visible stars and planets around.
But efforts in laboratories on earth and in deep underground caverns to find concrete evidence that it is there, and to establish what it is, have so far proven fruitless.
Ting said it was also possible the surges came from pulsars - rotating neutron stars that emit a pulsing radiation.
But CERN physicist Pauline Gagnon told Reuters after hearing Ting that the precision of the AMS could make it possible "to get a first hold on dark matter really soon".
"That would be terrific, like discovering a completely new continent. It would really open the door to a whole new world," said Gagnon, a Canadian physicist on ATLAS, one of the two CERN teams that believe they found evidence of the elusive Higgs particle in the centre's Large Hadron Collider.
New physics:
John Conway, a physics professor from the University of California, Davis, working at CERN, said a confirmed discovery would push scientists into uncharted realms of research.
He said fresh insights could be gained into super-symmetry, a theory that says the current known 17 elementary particles have heavier but invisible counterparts, and dimensions beyond the currently known length, breadth and height, and time.
Other scientists, especially cosmologists now trying to peer back beyond the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, suggest identification of dark matter could give new clues to whether the universe itself is alone or one of many.
New research could start at CERN's Large Hadron Collider when the vast machine resumes operations in early 2015.
Until last week, dark matter was thought to make up around 24% of the universe, with normal matter - galaxies, stars and planets - accounting for about 4.5%.
But then the European Space Agency's Planck satellite team reported that mapping of echoes of the early cosmos showed dark matter made up 26.8% and ordinary matter 4.9% - together the total of the material of the universe.
The dominant constituent is the non-material "dark energy", as mysterious as dark matter and believed to be the driver of cosmic expansion.
This file image shows a real CMS proton-proton collision in which four high energy electrons (green lines and red towers) are observed in a 2011 event. (AP).
A final identification of what makes up the enigmatic material would solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics and open up new investigations into the possibility of multiple universes and other areas, said researchers.
Members of an international team had picked up what might be the first physical trace left by dark matter while studying cosmic rays recorded on the International Space Station, said the head of the Europe- and US-based research project Samuel Ting.
He told a packed seminar at the CERN research centre, near Geneva, the team had found a surge of positron particles that might have come from dark matter.
In the coming months, he said, the CERN-built AMS particle detector on the space station "will be able to tell us conclusively whether these positrons are a signal for dark matter or if they have some other origin".
Dark matter, once the stuff of science fiction, "is one of the most important mysteries of physics today," Ting, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 1976 Nobel physics prize winner, has written.
Sometimes called the sculptor of the universe's millions of galaxies because of the way its gravity shapes their formation, its existence has long been recognised because of the way it pushes visible stars and planets around.
But efforts in laboratories on earth and in deep underground caverns to find concrete evidence that it is there, and to establish what it is, have so far proven fruitless.
But CERN physicist Pauline Gagnon told Reuters after hearing Ting that the precision of the AMS could make it possible "to get a first hold on dark matter really soon".
"That would be terrific, like discovering a completely new continent. It would really open the door to a whole new world," said Gagnon, a Canadian physicist on ATLAS, one of the two CERN teams that believe they found evidence of the elusive Higgs particle in the centre's Large Hadron Collider.
New physics:
John Conway, a physics professor from the University of California, Davis, working at CERN, said a confirmed discovery would push scientists into uncharted realms of research.
He said fresh insights could be gained into super-symmetry, a theory that says the current known 17 elementary particles have heavier but invisible counterparts, and dimensions beyond the currently known length, breadth and height, and time.
Other scientists, especially cosmologists now trying to peer back beyond the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, suggest identification of dark matter could give new clues to whether the universe itself is alone or one of many.
New research could start at CERN's Large Hadron Collider when the vast machine resumes operations in early 2015.
Until last week, dark matter was thought to make up around 24% of the universe, with normal matter - galaxies, stars and planets - accounting for about 4.5%.
But then the European Space Agency's Planck satellite team reported that mapping of echoes of the early cosmos showed dark matter made up 26.8% and ordinary matter 4.9% - together the total of the material of the universe.
The dominant constituent is the non-material "dark energy", as mysterious as dark matter and believed to be the driver of cosmic expansion.
This file image shows a real CMS proton-proton collision in which four high energy electrons (green lines and red towers) are observed in a 2011 event. (AP).
Courtesy: Hindustan Times
