back to article Boffins search for dark matter in abandoned Australian mine

Australian physicists are looking at an unused gold mine in the Victorian town of Stawell to see if it's a suitable spot for a dark matter detector. As reported in the Wimmera Mail Times here, the Stawell Gold Mine Future Possibilities project has okayed the Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at Terascale (CoEPP) to …

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  1. Mark 85

    I'm probably wrong,

    But I thought gold mines has a certain amount of naturally occurring radiation due to the type of rock it hides in.

    Edit: I Googled and they do. So won't this affect the instrumentation?

    1. Denarius
      Happy

      Re: I'm probably wrong,

      see article on radon mention. Yep, radioactive gas. Like the K40, uranium, thorium and other elements prone to nuclear weak force instability that exist anywhere underground, despite GreenPieces (sic) insistence otherwise. I suspect some of the dark matter will be roo and wombat poo, judging by the droppings around my scrub patch. I wonder if they will also offset the change in neutrino irradiation that has been measured as the Earths orbital distance varies annually ?

      1. JDX Gold badge

        I wonder if they will also offset the change in neutrino irradiation that has been measured

        Those experimental physicists are not well-known for their cowboy attitude to measurements.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: I'm probably wrong,

      That's alright, they're probably wrong about the entire existence of 'Dark Matter' anyway.

      In any other field an invisible, all-pervasive space-bending fudge factor like that would be laughed at. Or worshipped... Still, at least all that time at the bottom of a minshaft would get you a bit of peace and quiet to work on Modified Newtonian Mechanics theory.

      1. Denarius
        Happy

        Re: I'm probably wrong,

        no need for MOND either. An Israeli physicist, Carmeli, has worked out a simpler model that requires no fudge factors like MOND or DM. Just assumes an Einsteinian universe that is expanding.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: Carmeli's expansion model

          Not surprising, the man has five branes!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm probably wrong,

      Naturally occurring radioactive material can be an issue, but levels in this particular mine are low. I took lots of radiation measurements there about 6 or 7 years ago and it's an excellent low background environment. Some of the old mines around Ballarat have very low levels of background radiation as well and would be suitable if this falls through.

  2. foo_bar_baz
    Alien

    Awesome

    "DAMA/LIBRA's 25 scintillators are made from thallium-doped sodium iodide in a five-by-five matrix, with two photomultipliers coupled to each crystal."

    At this point I was poised to read about how they set up phase shift generators and ion drives, but alas no. No danger of creating a core breach or a temporal anomaly then, which is a relief.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wrong place.

    It'll be down the back of the sofa. Or in the last place they look, that's always where I find stuff...

    1. plrndl
      Alien

      Re: Wrong place.

      No, it's behind you.

      1. FartingHippo
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Wrong place.

        You need to think about where you'd look last, then look there first. It'll save you hours of frustration.

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Wrong place.

          It's always in the first place I look. Trouble is, I miss it, and then go looking everywhere else. Several hours later I've exhausted all other options and I go back to the first place I looked to discover it was there all along. This happens every time. You'd think I'd have learned by now! Fail icon is for me.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Dark Matter

    As long as they don't turn the light on down there, the place will be full of dark matter.... as there is under our stairs.

    1. Daniel von Asmuth
      Pint

      Re: Dark Matter

      The opposite of light water is:

      [] dark water

      [] heavy water

      [] anti-water

      [] holy water

      [] strong liquor

  5. seven of five
    Mushroom

    Bad Idea

    "dark matter" - check

    "thallium-doped sodium iodide crystal scintillators" - check

    "abandoned gold mine" - check

    now place everything on a continent known for its cuddly and cute wildlife and...

    What could possibly go wrong?

    1. Denarius
      Happy

      Re: Bad Idea

      Unless we find a lost Star Trek warp core dumped into a passing wormhole ? Then we have fun with the wildlife. Especially if Jadzia Dax shows up. Anyway, the redbacks will love having a new hangout. Wombats can't dig thru rock so no cut Achilles tendons for the staff. Drop bears might take up residence at top of lift shaft.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Bad Idea

        Honey badgers too...

  6. Simon Harris
    Coat

    I found dark matter in an abandoned mine...

    ... turned out to be coal!

  7. JDX Gold badge

    It's obvious space is mostly dark matter

    You only have to look up - the sky is nearly all black!

  8. andy gibson

    Boulby, UK

    I've been lucky enough to see the UK's equivalent at Boulby. They occasionally do tours. If you can get on one you will absolutely love it.

    1. Sporkinum

      Re: Boulby, UK

      The wife and I visited the Soudan mine in Minnesota last year. Very cool. All the equipment had to be taken down the same mine elevator you use to get to the bottom. http://www.soudan.umn.edu/

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yay

    for Science.

    I am actually working on a neutrino detector at the moment, however mine will use a radioactive isotope as the detector and look for half life changes due to neutrino effect on B+ decay.

    Would make sense, also relevant is that article suggesting that axions could be detected by their effect on Josephon junctions at <0.1K.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stawell???

    I guess the physicists don't want to travel too far from the Carlton coffee shops.

    I remember many years ago there was a plan to put a gravitational wave detector in Western Australia, somewhere in the vicinity of the Gun Barrel Highway, so fairly remote. But all physics money went to Switzerland for so we could confirm the Standard Model and say "There is a Englert - um - Higgs Boson".

    But with the resources bust, I think that there are a few large holes in the ground in remote areas with sufficient free infrastructure to support at team of scientists looking for dark matter.

  11. Michael Dunn
    Pint

    Dark Matter?

    An ant, or a stream of ants, crawling up a table leg to get to some spilled sugar, is unaware of the table, or even the concept of a table, or indeed of the concept of a universe in which tables, makers of tables and spillers of sugar do or could exist.

    Physicists being somewhat more sophisticated than ants can measure and speculate about the universe as so far revealed to their understanding, but are still very much in the 'dark.'

    Postulating a 'missing' 90 odd percent of the mass of our universe for which they are unable to account they come up with the 'dark matter' idea.

    Could not this matter actually be the hardware on which the current simulacrum of a physical universe is running?

    Dum bibo spero.

  12. Enric Martinez

    Dark matter in a mine???

    I bet they was "abandoned" there by the miners.

    I recommend the use of good rubber gloves to handle it.

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