Hunt for Dark Matter Heads Deeper Underground

Scientists hunting for the invisible substance believed to make up most of the matter in the universe are planning to move the search to a two-mile-deep mine in Canada. Researchers trying to detect dark matter about a half-mile below the surface of Minnesota suspect they may have captured two particles but they believe the search will have to go deeper to reduce interference from cosmic rays, the BBC reports.

Scientists believe dark matter is made up of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles—WIMPs—and the search has focused on trying to detect those particles as they pass through the Earth. NASA, meanwhile, is taking the search into space instead of underground. The agency's Fermi Space Telescope is trying to find evidence of the "annihilations" believed to occur when two WIMPs collide. (More dark matter stories.)