A Whiff of Dark Matter on the ISS [View all]

[BridgeTheGap]

(What are they feed those folks up there!?! btg)

In science fiction, finding antimatter on board your spaceship is not good news. Usually, it means you're moments away from an explosion.

In real life, though, finding antimatter could lead to a Nobel Prize.

On April 3rd, researchers led by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting of MIT announced that the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle detector operating onboard the International Space Station since 2011, has counted more than 400,000 positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. There’s no danger of an explosion, but the discovery is sending shock waves through the scientific community.

"These data show the existence of a new physical phenomenon," wrote Ting and colleagues in an article published in the Physical Review Letters. "It could be a sign of dark matter."

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/14apr_ams/