This story is free to read.

Scientists looking for invisible dark matter can’t find any

FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2013, photo Richard Gaitskell, study co-investigator from Brown University, explains an experiment being conducted deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D., to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter. Scientists 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. But they announced Thursday, July 21, 2016, 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.(AP Photo/Chet Brokaw, File) — FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2013, photo Richard Gaitskell, study co-investigator from Brown University, explains an experiment being conducted deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D., to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter. Scientists 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. But they announced Thursday, July 21, 2016, 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.(AP Photo/Chet Brokaw, File) FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2013, photo Richard Gaitskell, study co-investigator from Brown University, explains an experiment being conducted deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D., to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter. Scientists 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. But they announced Thursday, July 21, 2016, 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.(AP Photo/Chet Brokaw, File)

By Associated Press July 21, 2016 1 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Scientists 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. They 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.

University of California, 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.