Dark matter is a scientific mystery. But physicists like Dan McKinsey theorize it must exist because without it, the universe would look quite different. With support from the National Science Foundation, McKinsey and a team of scientists from across the U.S. and Europe are hard at work on the Large Underground Xenon, or LUX, experiment. Nearly a mile straight down an old mine shaft at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, the team searches for the existence of one possible type of dark matter called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
