Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other telescopes on Mauna Kea have studied a giant filament of dark matter in 3D for the first time. Image released Oct. 17. 2012.
CREDIT: Image by ESA; additional elements by K. Teramura, Univ. Hawaii Institute for Astronomy
The hiding spots for the particles making up dark matter are narrowing, and the answer to this cosmic mystery could come within the next three or four years, scientists say.
Dark matter is an elusive substance that is invisible and almost never detected, except by its gravitational pull. Yet astronomers say it likely makes up a quarter of the entire universe and dwarfs the amount of normal matter (galaxies, stars and planets) out there in space.
Just last week, particle physics discovery from the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland cast doubt on a theory called supersymmetry, which predicts the existence of particles that are among the leading candidates for dark matter.
That finding limited the types of supersymmetric particles that can exist, but didn't take the supersymmetry explanation off the table completely.
And supersymmetric particles are just one of a number of theorized particles that might account for dark matter. Searches for these and other undiscovered particles have been underway for decades, though none have been detected so far. [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings]
"I think we're looking in enough different ways that unless it's something that we just haven't thought of at all yet, it seems to me we're very likely to find it within the next decade," said Dan Bauer, a physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois working on one of the experiments, called CDMS.
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