In “Dark matter found at last? WIMPS in space might hold the crucial clue, experiment finds” (Mail Online, September 19, 2011) , Rob Waugh reports,
Scientists working on the Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers (CRESST) experiment may have recorded evidence of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) – a crucial step towards solving the mystery of “dark matter”, a material thought to make up the huge majority of the matter in the universe, but which is extremely difficult to detect.
The experiment is run from under the Gran Sasso massif in Italy.
WIMPs are bodies which are the most popular current theory to account for “dark matter” – so-called because they are thought to react with normal matter, but only rarely. …
Of curse it’s probably just a flash in the pan:
‘It’s an interesting result – but nowhere near as convincing as we would like for such an important find,’ says Sean Paling, who works on a similar project at Britain’s deepest mine, the Boulby Potash mine.