Deep Underground, The World's Most Sensitive Dark Matter Detector Is Getting Closer To Finding Elusive "WIMPS"

Deep in a mine in South Dakota is the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter detector, a pair of nested titanium tanks filled with 10 tons of transparent, pure liquid xenon nestled far underground to shield it from cosmic particles that may drown out any faint signals. If dark matter is made of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) as suspected, they should occasionally slam into xenon atoms, producing a flash of light. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The LZ detector will run for at least 1,000 days through 2028, and scientists have now released the data from the first 220 days. No dark matter particle has been discovered, but scientists can now rule out several possibilities, narrowing down the hunt and getting closer to defi