Dark Matter Really Exists?

If true, this would be one of the biggest discoveries since.... no, it would be the biggest discovery of all time. Some estimate 70% of all the matter in the universe is dark matter- something we've never seen or detected before today.

Dark matter is proved, Italian physicists say

Their team repeats an earlier experiment and finds consistent results, but critics say its claims are still questionable.

By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 19, 2008

An Italian team on Wednesday renewed its claim to have discovered evidence for the existence of dark matter, the invisible material that makes up the bulk of the universe.

Critics say the University of Rome team has answered some of the objections to their earlier findings but not all of them, leaving their claims still a subject of great controversy.

"This is a Nobel Prize-winning result if it is proved," said physicist Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, who was not involved in the research. "

But it needs to be confirmed, and the experiment really has to demonstrate a total mastery of the data. Neither of those criteria have been achieved, and therefore you have to bring a healthy skepticism to the result as it stands."

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-darkmatter19apr19,0,7762233.story