$ 9.2 million detector looking for dark matter failed

Dark matter is becoming more and more unrecognizable as scientists acknowledge that LUX detectors are worth millions of dollars failing to find it.

According to the Telegraph, about 80% of the cosmic mass is made up of a kind of material that cannot be directly observed, called dark matter. Scientists believe that the universe exists with dark matter because its gravity affects the rotation of galaxies and bends light.

Dark matter plays the role of linking and shaping the universe. It does not radiate and does not absorb light, so it cannot be observed with conventional instruments and telescopes.

To search for dark matter, a research team consisting of scientists at the University of London (UCL), UK, established the Large Underground Xenon Detector (LUX) worth $ 9.2 million below a mine. Old gold in the state of South Dakota, USA.

LUX experiment in South Dakota, USA.(Photo: Telegraph).

LUX is located at a depth of about 1.6 km. It is placed in a tank containing more than 270,000 liters of water with high purity to prevent cosmic rays and other radiation affecting measurement results.

LUX detector is capable of detecting small flashes when dark matter collides with xenon atoms. LUX seeks for weakly interacting large particles (WIMP), the best candidate for dark matter. According to the WIMP theory, billions of ghostly dark matter particles pass through the human body every second.

In May 2016, after 20 months of running the LUX detector, the team did not detect traces of dark matter. Although not yet successful, scientists are planning to create a detector that is 70 times more sensitive than LUX to continue its search.

"LUX is the world's best dark matter search engine , since it began operating in 2013. During the period from 2014 - 2016, the device's sensitivity was four times higher than the projected target. But sadly, LUX did not detect any obvious dark matter signals , " said Rick Gaitskell, a professor at Brown University, USA.

News LUX found no trace of dark matter published at the International Dark Material Conference (IDM 2016) taking place in Sheffield, England, on July 21.