Physicists have proposed a mind-boggling space mission that might finally expose the true nature of dark matter, an enigmatic substance that is considered one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in science, reports a new study.
Dark matter is about five times more plentiful in the universe than the familiar stuff that makes up stars, planets, and even our bodies, distinguishing it as a fundamental component of the universe. But despite its abundance, dark matter has proved completely inscrutable to our instruments, and it has never been directly detected; we only know that it exists due to indirect observations of its gravitational influence over luminous bodies, such as galaxy clusters.
Scientists have developed many sophisticated techniques to snag the first direct detection of dark matter, a milestone that could answer a whole host of open questions about our universe, but all have come up short so far.
Now, a team led by Yu-Dai Tsai, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine, has proposed a fascinating space mission that would use the most accurate clocks ever invented to search for dark matter that might be bound to the Sun. In this way, the concept mission, which the team calls SpaceQ, could potentially uncover “new physics” and “study many fundamental physics topics,” according to a study published in Nature Astronomy on Monday.
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