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Article: Big question, invisible answer,: Scientists on verge of detecting universe's dark matter
- Article from:
- Sunday Gazette-Mail
- Article date:
- June 11, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 Sunday Gazette-Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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WASHINGTON - After a 70-year hunt, astronomers and physicists
think they'll soon be able to identify "dark matter," a ghostly glue
that keeps the galaxies, including our own Milky Way, from flying
apart.
Telescopes in space and detectors buried deep underground are
searching for this mysterious substance, which is at least five times
more plentiful than ordinary matter, the stuff of stars, planets,
trees and people.
Finding it would answer a fundamental question in science: What is
much of the universe made of?
Dark matter is thought to consist of an enormous swarm of