On September 1, 2026, scientists at a dark matter detector called LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) reported they had observed an event, a particle interaction, that they were unable to explain.
The team, based in South Dakota in the US, said the event resembled what they think a dark matter particle should produce when it collides with liquid xenon, one of a range of materials used for detecting dark matter.
They stopped short of calling it the discovery, or proof of dark matter, that many in the field have been hunting for almost 100 years.
The term "dark matter" was coined by physicist Fritz Zwicky in 1933 as a means to describe unseen matter that would explain fast-moving galaxies.
The LUX-ZEPLIN observation came just days after the release of the second season of Dark Matter, a sci-fi thriller starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. Both events pushed the term "dark matter" back into people's minds.
