Kate Becker: Digging deep for ancient dark matter
Last edited Fri Jul 6, 2018, 04:22 AM - Edit history (1)
By Kate Becker
For the Camera
POSTED: 07/05/2018 04:37:44 PM MDT
UPDATED: 07/05/2018 04:38:27 PM MDT
A long time ago — that is, in high school — I thought I would either study neuroscience or astrophysics. They had the same attraction: a promise to apply the precision of science, its rigor of method and mind, to questions that high schoolers take very seriously, like: Who am I? What is my place in the world? What does it all mean?
I figured that neuroscience would take on these questions by looking inward, by thinking about thinking — just the kind of thing that could get a teenaged introvert seriously lost in the internal house of mirrors. Set against the claustrophobia of this perpetual reflection, astrophysics was a relief: an outward-looking science, one in which you could find yourself by losing yourself, figure yourself out without thinking about you at all.
So, that's what I picked. And the farther out from Earth you get — out past the apocalyptic asteroids, past the rovers' tread marks, past the point where the sun stops being The Sun and starts being just another star — the more exotic and less human-centric the questions become.
At least, that's how it usually works. But now, a group of astrophysicists has proposed a new way to study one of the deepest mysteries of outer space right here on Earth, using a drill and a microscope instead of a satellite and a telescope.
More:
http://www.dailycamera.com/science_columnists/ci_31989248/kate-becker-digging-deep-ancient-dark-matter