My colleagues and I - a team of some 250 scientists from around the world working on a dark matter experiment called Lux-Zeplin (or LZ) - gave reported our latest findings from the long quest to discover exactly what this dark matter is made of.
So, what is this dark matter made of? We currently don't know of any kind of particle that could explain these astronomical observations.
There are dozens of theories that aim to explain dark matter observations, ranging from exotic unknown particles to tiny black holes or fundamental changes to our theory of gravity. However, none of them has yet been proven correct.
One of the most popular theories suggests dark matter is made up of so-called "weakly interacting massive particles" (or Wimps). These relatively heavy particles could cause the observed gravitational effects and also - very rarely - interact with ordinary matter.
The experiment consists of a large double-walled tank filled with seven tonnes of liquid xenon, a noble gas chilled down to a temperature of 175 kelvin (-98°C).
