Dark Matter Hunter Captures The 'Rarest Thing Ever Recorded' In A Process 1 Trillion Times Longer Th [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Dark Matter Hunter Captures The ‘Rarest Thing Ever Recorded’ In A Process 1 Trillion Times Longer Than The Age Of The Universe
24 April 2019, 11:55 pm EDT By Naia Carlos Tech Times

The universe is more than 13 billion years old. Multiply this number by a trillion and that is the half-life of a xenon-124 atom, which is the time it takes for a group of xenon-124 to diminish by half.

For the first time ever, scientists were able to observe this decaying process in a near-impossible feat.

"We actually saw this decay happen. It's the longest, slowest process that has ever been directly observed, and our dark matter detector was sensitive enough to measure it," said Ethan Brown, coauthor and an assistant professor of physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in a report from the university. "It's an amazing to have witnessed this process, and it says that our detector can measure the rarest thing ever recorded."

Amazingly, the scientists were able to pull it off using an instrument that's designed to search the universe for another elusive sight: dark matter.

More:
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/242225/20190424/dark-matter-hunter-captures-the-rarest-thing-ever-recorded-in-a-process-1-trillion-times-longer-than-the-age-of-the-universe.htm