WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have come up empty-handed in their latest effort to find elusive dark matter, the plentiful stuff that helps galaxies like ours form.

For three years scientists have been looking for dark matter nearly a mile underground in a former gold mine in South Dakota. They announced Thursday that despite sensitive equipment working better than expected, they couldn't find the invisible particles that make up four-fifths of the universe's matter.

University of California, Berkeley physicist Daniel McKinsey says the team was both proud of the work and disappointed.

The $10 million mine project, called Large Underground Xenon experiment or LUX, was one of three places looking for dark matter, along with the International Space Station and Europe's Large Hadron Collider.

[STORY BY: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS]

 

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