Dark matter revealed?
(Read article summary)Giant particle collider at CERN could detect dark matter.
Geneva
Dark matter, which scientists believe makes up 25 percent of the universe but whose existence has never been proven, could be detected by the giant particle collider at CERN, the research center's head said Monday.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer told a news conference some evidence for the matter may emerge even in the shorter term from mega-power particle collisions aimed at recreating conditions at the "Big Bang" birth of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago.
"We don't know what dark matter is," said Heuer, Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.
"Our Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could be the first machine to give us insight into the dark universe," he said. "We are opening the door to New Physics, to a discovery period."
Astronomers and physicists say that only 5 percent of the universe is known currently, and that the invisible remainder consists of dark matter and dark energy, which make up some 25 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
