{"id":631631,"date":"2026-09-21T18:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631631\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T18:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:00:09","slug":"searching-for-dark-matter-with-a-levitating-magnet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631631\/","title":{"rendered":"Searching For Dark Matter With A Levitating Magnet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much of science is performed through inference, with the readings on instruments, a flash of light in heavy water, or the results of parsing through terabytes of sensor data after a particle accelerator collision either backing up a proposed scenario or weakening its foundations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the case of so-called dark matter, this is even more relevant, as we are talking about a proposed form of matter whose most pertinent feature is that it doesn\u2019t interact with anything else except through gravity. This is where the wiggling of a levitating magnet<\/a> may be the key to detecting it.<\/p>\n

In this experimental setup by Rice University and Dutch researchers at the Leiden Institute, a tiny permanent magnet the size of a grain of sand is levitated above a superconductor, surrounded by highly sensitive detectors that should be able to spot even minuscule movements. So far, they have collected a month\u2019s worth of data, with no conclusive results yet.<\/p>\n

Even if they don\u2019t detect any \u2018knocks\u2019 on this tiny levitating magnet, it will still help refine existing models of what dark matter\u2019s properties might be. For the next phase of this research, they\u2019ll add more of these sensors, which will also make it easier to distinguish background noise from any unusual readings.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve previously talked about [Vera Ruben]\u2019s contributions to the hunt for dark matter<\/a> and the mysteries that prompted the idea that it might exist<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much of science is performed through inference, with the readings on instruments, a flash of light in heavy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[61,60,248,82],"class_list":["post-631631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}