Looking at the night sky, have you ever wondered why darkness is noticed more than anything else? For a moment, you might think that the universe is mostly empty; but, is space empty? Or, is there something out there hiding behind our plain sight?
In 1933, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky was observing the Coma Cluster, a large cluster of galaxies that encompasses over 1,000 identified galaxies. Zwicky stumbled upon a major discrepancy between theory and observation; he found that the mass of the cluster based on the speed of its galaxies was about ten times more than its mass based on its total light output. Zwicky, who was considered far ahead of his time, concluded that the Coma Cluster must contain unseen matter. That was when the term “Dark Matter” came into existence.
It was not until the 1970s, after Zwicky’s death, that other astronomers took his allegations seriously and confirmed the existence of Dark Matter. Since then, it has become a major area of interest and research for radio astronomers, cosmologists, physicists, and particle physicists, and has validated its status as part of the cosmological canon.
In the last few years, Dark Matter has been making its way to news headlines worldwide with more nations launching huge projects dedicated to it, and more research groups announcing their progress and findings. For example, in August 2022, Australia announced launching its Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL). Yet, most remarkably, a 2,400-meter-deep physics laboratory in southwest China's Sichuan Province became operational in November 2023, marking the deepest and largest underground lab in the world dedicated to studying Dark Matter.
The Deep Underground and Ultra-Low Radiation Background Facility for Frontier Physics Experiments (DURF)—with a total capacity of 330,000 cubic meters—is the second phase of China Jinping Underground Laboratory. The construction started in 2020 in collaboration with Tsinghua University, considered to be one of China’s top universities, and Yalong River Hydropower Development Company, Ltd.
As a major national project, the facility is meant to develop into a world-class platform integrating multiple disciplines including particle physics, nuclear astrophysics, and life sciences. The lab seeks to detect and study dark matter particles, which are hypothesized to make up a significant portion of the universe's mass but have so far eluded direct detection.
Well, it seems the search for dark matter could make even more headlines in 2024. By exploring dark matter's properties, the findings of these huge research projects will contribute to our understanding of fundamental physics and—without doubt—will give humanity better insight into the universe's structure and evolution.
References
amnh.org
en.wikipedia.org/Fritz_Zwicky
en.wikipedia.org/Coma_Cluster
nature.com
popularmechanics.com
space.com
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