Dark matter - a mysterious, hypothetical particle that has puzzled scientists for years - may have been discovered for the first time in the 2,000-foot-deep Soudan iron mine in northern Minnesota, a mine in which temperatures near absolute zero. Theories suggest that dark matter could be composed of weakly interacting massive particles. WIMPS rarely interact with normal matter, but their energy is occasionally detected using germanium and silicon detectors. In the iron mine, these detectors picked up two separate hits.
At the moment, however, there are still too few detectors to confirm the finding. Moreover, these mysterious particles are difficult to identify because they neither reflect nor emit light, making them virtually invisible.
Should the finding prove to be true, though, it could help to explain certain mysteries of the universe. Dark matter theory first was used to explain "strange anomalies" of the universe, such as planetary rotational speed and properties of clustering galaxies. Scientists also believe that Earth's galaxy is embedded in a cloud of dark matter.
-compiled by Nalin Chuapetcharasopon
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