Seeking Dark Matter, They Detected Another Mystery – The New York Times

A team of scientists hunting dark matter has recorded suspicious pings coming from a vat of liquid xenon underneath a mountain in Italy. They are not claiming to have discovered dark matter or anything, for that matter yet. But these pings, they say, could be tapping out a new view of the universe.

If the signal is real and persists, the scientists say, it may be evidence of a species of subatomic particles called axions long theorized to play a crucial role in keeping nature symmetrical but never seen streaming from the sun.

It s not dark matter but discovering a new particle would be phenomenal, said Elena Aprile of Columbia University, who leads the Xenon Collaboration, the project that made the detection.

via www.nytimes.com

I’m seeing the appeal of physics right now.