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November 29, 2011

XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment

Graphic shows the steps involved in the XENON 100 dark matter search experiment. XENON100 is an ultra-sensitive device, with specially designed layers of water, lead, copper and other shielding, to filter out radiation and other sources of energy that could cause a false signal in the search for dark matter. The experiment is located beneath a mile of rock and earth, to help shield the detector from cosmic radiation that is constantly bombarding our planet.

The XENON100 experiment involves an international collaboration of researchers and is supported in part by the National Science Foundation. This image accompanied the NSF press release "Search for Dark Matter Narrowed by New Data From XENON100."

Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation


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