SYLLABUS SECTION: GS III (SCIENCE AND TECH)

WHY IN THE NEWS?

Recently, Physicists working with the world’s biggest dark matter detector a behemoth in the United States known as LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) released their first results.

MORE DETAILS:

• In US a test run of LZ detector has shown the most sensitive dark matter detector yet created.
• Visible universe is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons bundle together into atoms.
• This ordinary, also called baryonic, matter makes up less than 5 percent of the mass of universe.
• Rest of the universe appears to be made of a mysterious, invisible substance call dark matter (25 percent) and a force that repels gravity known as dark energy (70 percent).
• Dark matter does not interact with electromagnetic force unlike normal matter, This means it does not absorb, reflect or emit light, making it extremely hard to spot.
• Scientists study dark matter by looking at the effects it has on visible objects.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DARK MATTER STUDY

• Darks matters may the reason for unexplained motions of stars within galaxies.
• Help in understanding of evolution of universe and to emergence of stars, planets etc.
• They may help to determine if the universe is open (continues to expand), closed (expands to a point and then collapses) or flat (expands and then stops when it reaches equilibrium).

About LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector                         

• It is design (underground) to capture dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).
• It consists of a huge titanium tank filled with extremely pure liquid xenon.
• Centre of LZ is one of the purest places on Earth (free of radiation and dust).
• Collaboration of scientists/institutions from U.S., U.K., Portugal, and Korea.

Read more: UPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS

SOURCE: INDIAN EXPRESS