The detection of dark matter may be possible within a decade, a Nobel prize winning physics professor has claimed.
Prof Carlo Rubbia told a conference in Edinburgh, UK, that this breakthrough will change our view of our place in the universe.
"All the visible objects in the Universe...only account for 0.5% of the total, so the Universe as we know it is only a side-show," he said.
Recent estimates suggest about 23% of our universe is made of dark matter.
So far, attempts to prove the existence of dark matter have drawn a blank. Even huge particle accelerators with tunnels several miles in diameter have failed to create dark matter particles artificially.
Deep underground
Professor Rubbia, of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Environment (ENEA), told the conference that detectors deep underground may finally provide the proof.
Detectors like those at Boulby in Yorkshire are buried deep beneath the Earth to shield them from cosmic radiation that could confuse the equipment.
The leading dark matter candidates are heavy slow-moving particles known as Wimps (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) that have been drifting through space since the Universe began.
These sub-atomic particles interact with normal matter only very weakly and are almost impossible to detect in a laboratory on the Earth's surface.
Prof Rubbia suggests a stream of dark matter might constantly be flowing through the Earth and these may be measurable in the underground detectors.
"These cosmic particles are electrically neutral and hardly interact with the ordinary matter," Professor Andy Parker of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University told BBC News Online.
But if one drifts our way the detectors may be able to see it.
Full Article