The Search for Earth Bound Dark Matter

Imagine—as you conduct your daily life, tiny particles from well beyond Earth flow through you. Even when you are sleep, these particles arrive from space. They deflect toward you, pass through you, then make their way. Some return to space. Some pass through the ground, unhindered, tuneling down the Earth’s core.

These particles are called dark matter, because they do not emit light. They permeate the entire Universe, forming 80% of all mass.  The gravitational pull of dark matter has changed the trajectories of stars and star clusters. As we consider larger scales, its role become more apparent. Dark matter spins galaxies and weaves them into superclusters. Dark matter even bends light itself, creating ghostly and distorted reflections of galaxies.

These distant phenomena inspire us to examine dark matter closer to home. Huge efforts have mounted to capture dark matter particles underneath the Earth. While research teams patiently wait for a definitive capture event, we can make progress looking for other signatures of dark matter. These signatures touch the sensitive technologies we use every day, such as GPS.

This exploration requires a new way of looking at what we already see every day. We have to develop a new line of reasoning. To see what is not seen, overlooked, we must restructure our vision. Our reasoning must not be by analogy, but aligned with first principles.

So please join us in exploring how to discover the dark matter that surrounds us every minute of the day.