Latest Search For Dark Matter Leaves Scientists Empty Handed

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- A team of scientists that included a UC Berkeley phycisist have come up empty-handed in their latest effort to find elusive dark matter, the plentiful stuff that helps galaxies like ours form.

For three years scientists have been looking for dark matter nearly a mile underground in a former gold mine in South Dakota.

The group announced Thursday that despite sensitive equipment working better than expected, they couldn't find the invisible particles that make up four-fifths of the universe's matter.

UC Berkeley physicist Daniel McKinsey says the team was both proud of the work and disappointed.

The $10 million mine project, called Large Underground Xenon experiment or LUX, was one of three places looking for dark matter, along with the International Space Station and Europe's Large Hadron Collider.

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