Space Station Collects Clues on Universe’s Dark Matter

The European Organization for Nuclear Research said it has data that could signal the presence of dark matter, an elusive unseen target that physicists believe makes up as much as a quarter of the universe.

Dark matter is mass that scientists cant detect directly, but whose existence is inferred through its gravitational pull on visible matter, such as planets. Using a collector mounted on the International Space Station for more than a year, scientists at the CERN research institute gathered data on particles, called positrons, they believe may be expelled when dark matter collides in a burst of energy and is destroyed.

The collector gathered data on 400,000 positrons, the antimatter form of electrons, creating the largest collection of such particles recorded in space, according to a statement today. The data are consistent with theories on dark matter and the experiment will confirm in coming months whether the positrons are a signal for dark matter, Geneva-based CERN said.

Dark matter is one of the most important mysteries of physics today, CERN said, adding it will take several years to refine its studies.

The search for dark matter is moving ahead on two fronts. Last month, scientists at CERN announced they have more certainty a particle they observed last year is a Higgs Boson, a missing link in physics that would help them explain the makeup of universal phenomena, such as dark matter, that telescopes cant detect.

In that case, the data was gained using the $10.5 billion Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer (17-mile) circumference particle accelerator buried on the border of France and Switzerland. CERN has had 10,000 scientists working on the research, in which billions of subatomic particles are hurled at each other at velocities approaching the speed of light.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Mulier in Geneva at tmulier@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Risser at drisser@bloomberg.net; Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

A file photo shows Astronaut Robert L. Curbeam, Jr. preparing to replace a faulty TV camera on the exterior of the International Space Station during December 2006.

A file photo shows Astronaut Robert L. Curbeam, Jr. preparing to replace a faulty TV camera on the exterior of the International Space Station during December 2006. Source: NASA via Bloomberg

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Space Station Collects Clues on Universe’s Dark Matter