Partner Article

Teesside challenges Big Bang machine

Science really is the big topic this week, with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland dominating the headlines across the world. However, scientists in the North East are attempting to beat the “Big Bang” project at its own game.

Last year we reported on the dark matter research taking place at Boulby, on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. The team of scientists in a tiny lab at the bottom of the deepest mine in Britain are hoping to be the first to detect dark matter - the so-called ‘cosmic glue’ theorised to bind together the Universe.

One of the LHC’s aims is to detect evidence of the existence of dark matter - the name given to the mysterious unseen particles thought to exist all around us and throughout space.

The scientists operating the LHC expect to trace dark matter within two years. But their rivals at the £2m Palmer Laboratory beneath Boulby potash mine could succeed in half that time.

At 1,100m deep the mine in East Cleveland is so deep it is shielded from cosmic rays that would distort the project’s readings.

Researchers at Boulby have built two of the most sensitive astro-particle detection machines known to science. Both of their detectors are looking for “Wimps” - weakly interacting massive particles - which are as yet unobserved sub-atomic particles scientists believe may account for dark matter.

Boulby researcher Dr Sean Paling, of Sheffield University, said: “It is a race in the world astrophysics community to directly observe dark matter - and we would like to be first. “The LHC collider in Geneva hopes to create Wimps from other particles. But what we are doing is different. We want to observe them as they occur ‘in the wild’ - which will prove they exist naturally and that they surround us.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .