the ADMX detector

Dark matter is a huge mystery. This device is trying to detect it.

A particle that's theorized to be practically invisible could solve two cosmic puzzles at once. Will this machine find it?

The wiring configuration at the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment's computer lab in Seattle, Washington.

In an otherwise unassuming facility in northern Seattle, a supercooled tangle of tubes and wires is poised to remake the world. Coursing with liquid helium, the device's interior hovers less than a tenth of a degree above absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature. Inside the frigid cavity, carefully shielded from noise, microwave radiation can resonate like sound waves in a bell, hunting for hints of particles whizzing through that, in all other contexts, would be invisible.

Meet the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment, or ADMX: the most sensitive scientific instrument of its kind ever built. If ADMX confirms the existence of its prey, a theoretical particle called the axion, it could finally explain the massive cosmic mystery of dark matter.

Scientists have

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