Dark Matter Breakthrough Could Be Biggest Discovery In Physics

Huge excitement in the world of physics on this episode as news comes in that the first signs of dark matter particles may have finally been spotted . Now, if this result is confirmed, it could be it could be one of the most monumental discoveries in the history of physics . And I will say immediately that you know, there is only one data point . I did say if and may . There's a lot of work to do, but just the idea that after decades of trying , we may have finally observed this object that makes up the majority of the universe , that is why physicists and I am getting excited . From New Scientist, this is The World of the Universe and Us . I'm Dr. Rowan Hooper . And to discuss this, I'm joined by reporter Leah Crane . Leah, let's start with a recap on dark matter and and how we know exists if we've never actually directly observed it . All right, so the fast version is that dark matter makes up a huge proportion of the universe, 85% of the mass . Uh but for decades, physicists have been unable to determine what it's made of . We know and how it affects the rotation of galaxies and a few other things , but we've never actually seen a dark matter particle . The leading idea has always been that it is made of particles because everything else is made of particles . Um but uh as Yeah, what else could it be ? Um it could be sort of strangely behaving gravity , it could be a new force . Basically, it could be relativity is wrong or it could be a particle are the two big theories . Right. And we've been looking for for particles which are could be at all different sorts , but the leading idea has always been the weakly interacting massive particle or WIMP. And we . And we've been building more and more powerful detectors for decades