Otherwise, scientists may have to go back to the drawing board

Jan 23, 2014 15:39 GMT  ·  By
First signs of dark matter may be observed within a decade, one astronomer suggests
   First signs of dark matter may be observed within a decade, one astronomer suggests

According to a University of Amsterdam physicist, signs of dark matter may be revealed within the next decade or so. The expert, speaking at a Royal Society Frontiers of Astronomy conference in London, last November, said that scientists are currently on the right path, which should lead them to a conclusion soon, no matter the outcome. 

It is entirely possible, Gianfranco Bertone argued, that dark matter will not be detected, and that all of its theorized constituents, such as axions or weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMP), do not exist.

If that is indeed the case, then researchers may have to go back to the drawing board, and try to come up with a new explanation for why the Universe appears to hold 85 percent more matter than what we are able to detect today.

A significant number of dark matter experiments are currently being conducted at a variety of locations, and Bertone argued that there is a significant chance at least one of them will find signs of dark matter within the next ten years, Space reports.

Physicists are currently checking for “the existence of some of the most promising dark matter candidates with a wide array of experiments, including the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and a new generation of astroparticle experiments underground and in space,” the expert said at the meeting.