A Massive Particle Blasted Through Earth and Scientists Think It Might Be The First Detection of Dark Matter


In February 2023, an underwater telescope called KM3NeT, anchored several miles beneath the Mediterranean Sea, recorded the brightest particle track ever seen in the universe. A single flash raced through the instrument’s glass spheres, and computer checks showed that the parent particle must have carried about 220 peta-electronvolts of energy. That figure is so large it dwarfs the beams at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful accelerator, by almost one hundredfold.

…In a new study, the team argues that the flash could be the first sign of dark matter ever detected on Earth. Dark matter, an invisible form of matter that outweighs the normal kind by a factor of five, has revealed itself only indirectly through gravity so far. Many experiments have tried to trap it directly, but none have done so.…’ Jordan Strickler via ZME Science

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