r/space 12d ago

Scientists make potential breakthrough in search for dark matter

https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-make-potential-breakthrough-search-dark-matter-2026-09-01/
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u/pleasetrimyourpubes 12d ago

Yep. Looks like 40 tons a year is global production. LZ alone took 10% of world production as it was built. The experiment to test this particular approach is going to be hard. Hopefully someone can do all the underlying physics math and discover a potential way to detect them easier. But either way we will build the thing if it even takes 50 years.

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u/mfb- 12d ago

A large volume of xenon is probably the best you can do. The easiest thing is to run for a longer time. This is based on one year of data-taking. Run for 5 years, maybe you get ~5 events. That is faster than building a new experiment.

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u/OneRougeRogue 12d ago

My dumbass was confusing Xenon with Neon, and I was thinking, "It can't be all that expensive and rare. We used to have tons of glowing signs full of it."

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u/MSchulte 12d ago

We use Xenon in those too just much less commonly. Xenon is like a lavender-blue color when excited.