Could the Large Hadron Collider discover dark matter?

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The discovery of the Higgs boson was the greatest achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, but the discovery of dark matter has the potential to overtake it.

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The search for dark matter, the enigmatic material that must make up around 80% of all the stuff in the cosmos

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but which no one has ever seen, is the latest target set in the sights of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which has been turned back on after a three-year sabbatical.

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That most matter in the cosmos is truly invisible to us is a startling revelation

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Because they can detect the gravitational signatures of dark matter, astronomers assume that it must exist.

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The invisible cosmic framework known as dark matter is what holds galaxies and galaxy clusters together. Just what it is, we are unsure.

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It's intriguing to think that research at the Large Hadron Collider on the smallest scales may hold the answer to one of the biggest cosmological mysteries of all.

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Gian Guidice, the head of CERN's theoretical division, stated at a news conference at the end of June

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that the field of dark matter has undergone a total transformation since the discovery of the Higgs boson.

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Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPS), or the leading candidate for the identity of dark matter ten years ago, are a subclass of particles.

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These would be large-mass particles that would normally only have weak interactions, or 'couples,' with other particles, explaining dark matter's strong gravitational attraction.

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