Has Proof of Dark Matter Been Hiding on Ganymede?

Astronomers are on a scavenger hunt  that started almost 100 years ago, searching for something  right in front of their eyes.

They know something’s out there, holding galaxies together and sculpting the observable universe into this awesome shape.

And they’ve given it a name: dark matter.

The only problem is…no one has  any idea what dark matter is.

It barely interacts with  anything except through gravity.

It’s invisible, and all attempts  to detect it directly have failed.

But maybe… just maybe, a  giant moon orbiting Jupiter has been collecting evidence  of dark matter all along.

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The problem with looking for dark matter is that we don’t even really know what we’re looking for.

It’s like trying to go on an Easter egg  hunt if you’ve never seen an egg before.

Also, the eggs are invisible. And impossible to touch.

But over the past several decades,  scientists have come up with all sorts of ideas about what  dark matter might be like.

These days, one particularly popular hypothesis  is that it’s a bunch of tiny particles known as WIMPs that barely ever  interact with light and regular matter.

But very, very occasionally, a  WIMP could collide with an atom and release a little jolt of energy.

Assuming they actually exist,  and this actually happens, we could detect those jolts.

So around the world, scientists have built massive underground detectors full  of heavy atoms like xenon.

But after years of searching, they’ve had no luck.