Dark Matter Eludes Researchers

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Dark matter is known to neither emit nor interact with electromagnetic radiation. That means for all intents and purposes, dark matter is completely invisible. It is impossible to detect it using the electromagnetic spectrum. But that hasn't impeded researchers in their quest to find it. Detectors have been set up all around the world that use other physical phenomena to detect dark matter.

The journey of science isn't always all glory. And this time, researchers have yet again failed to detect the presence of dark matter.

According to an article on Science News, the DAMA experiment claims to have detected dark matter. Crystals of sodium iodide were used as detection material in the experiment. Scientists of DAMA have claimed to find evidence of yearly modulation - which is a sign of dark matter.

But one of the main principles of science is replicability. An experiment is considered to be scientifically sound only if other researchers are replicate its results anywhere in the world. This hasn't been the case for the DAMA experiment. Other experiments have failed to replicate its results. This has thrown a lot of doubt on the reliability of DAMA's results.

One more blow to the experiment's reputation has been another experiment named XENON100. It has been named so since it uses liquid xenon as a detection material. According to XENON100's official page, no conclusive evidence has been obtained regarding the presence of dark matter. It failed to replicate DAMA's results.

Some researchers are of the opinion that XENON100's failure to replicate the results of DAMA might be due to the fact that the two used different detection materials. Further conclusive evidence may be obtained from future results, but as of yet, dark matter is still missing.

But this isn't bad news. It only means that the privilege of being the first one to discover dark matter is still out for grabs. Until then, as with all discoveries of man, finding dark matter will take time