Physicists and astronaut discuss cosmic ray detector’s
findings of possible signs of dark matter.
Two MIT physicists and an alumnus who’s a NASA astronaut
spoke on campus earlier this week, describing an experiment that’s been 18
years in the making and yielded its first significant results just last week.
The experiment, called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or
AMS, was mounted on the side of the orbiting International Space Station (ISS)
in May 2011, when it was delivered there by a space shuttle crew that included
astronaut Michael Fincke ’89. Fincke has logged more time in space than any
other active astronaut, having spent more than a year in space, including more
than 50 hours on spacewalks.