The Hindu : Front Page : Researchers say they have found dark matter

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Friday, Apr 25, 2008
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Researchers say they have found dark matter

Ian Sample

LONDON: Scientists hunting an invisible form of matter that pervades the universe and holds galaxies together claim to have found it underneath a mountain in Italy.

The discovery, at a laboratory built deep into the Gran Sasso mountain in Abruzzo, could end a 70-year race to find the elusive “dark matter” that physicists believe accounts for 90 per cent of the mass of the universe. Its existence was first postulated in 1933 by a Swiss astronomer who observed that distant galaxies must be held together by a huge gravitational pull caused by some apparently invisible form of matter. It gained the name “dark matter” because it does not shine or reflect light.

Researchers led by Rita Bernabei at the University of Rome claim that a giant detector inside the mountain laboratory has picked up signs of dark matter. The signal suggests that it could be made of theoretical particles known as axions. The discovery was announced at a physics conference in Venice. The experiment was designed to detect dark matter in space as the earth flies through it. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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