Scientists running an underground detector in South Dakota say they have seen a mysterious tiny burst of energy that does not look like normal background noise.The experiment, called LUX‑ZEPLIN, recorded a signal that stood out as a potential dark matter particle striking an atom in a tank, which is filled with ultra‑pure liquid xenon. Months of checking have not turned up another cause.Scientists say this single event is their best hint of dark matter so far, but it's still just a maybe. Their math suggests a one‑in‑200 chance that known sources of interference could have produced it, so they can't call it a discovery.
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"We are not claiming to have seen dark matter," said Rick Gaitskell, a professor at Brown University and the spokesperson for the experiment. "But we have seen something interesting that we want to share with the scientific community for their input.”Here's what you need to know about this intriguing scientific result.
Dark matter is invisible stuff in space that has weight. It does not shine, glow, or block light, so telescopes can't see it directly. Scientists know it's there because of how it pulls on things. Stars in galaxies move as if much more mass surrounds them. Galaxy clusters bend light in ways that also show extra mass. All of this tells scientists that some other kind of material fills space. They call it dark matter, but they still don't know what kind of particle it is.What is the LUX‑ZEPLIN detector?The detector, LZ for short, is a large, quiet particle instrument buried a mile underground. Thick rock above the lab blocks most of the cosmic rays that hit Earth from space. Over 11 tons of liquid xenon sit in a sealed tank because it is a heavy, clear liquid when it is very cold. When a particle hits a xenon atom, it can give off a tiny flash of light and release a few electrons. Instruments around the tank record those signals and let scientists figure out where the hit happened and how strong it was.
