Our Universe is a giant cosmic puzzle
because most of it appears to be missing
The matter that forms the stars in our galaxy
and the planets in our Solar System
only accounts for around five percent of the Universe
To discover the elusive particles
that make up this missing dark matter
scientists have been using an instrument called the AMS
attached to the outside of the International Space Station
The detector is a magnetic spectrometer
It’s a very precise magnetic spectrometer
normally used in accelerators like CERN
and this is the first time
anyone has ever put a very precise
long duration magnetic spectrometer in space
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS
is a particle detector that took 16 countries
nearly 20 years to develop
Assembled at CERN
tested at ESA’s ESTEC facility
its Principal Investigator is a Nobel prize winning physicist
The AMS looks for dark matter
antimatter and measures cosmic rays
high energy particles
that travel through space at close to the speed of light
Inside AMS are seven layers of different detectors
to identify all the cosmic particles
such electrons, positrons, protons, antiprotons
and elements across the periodic table
The AMS has been searching for the unknown
since it was installed on the Space Station in 2011
the first instrument of its kind to work in space
Since then it has collected over 145 billion cosmic ray events
that range from low to extremely high energy levels
Some of this cosmic radiation is dangerous to human health
so we need to improve our knowledge
in order to eventually live on the Moon and Mars
Data from the AMS is sent via NASA
for analysis at CERN’s Payload Operations Control Centre
Excitingly
the results are contradicting existing theoretical models
of subatomic physics
and according to professor Ting
are beginning to revolutionise our understanding of cosmic rays
But the AMS cooling system
was originally designed for three years
and so ESA’s Luca Parmitano
will perform several challenging spacewalks to replace it
He arrived on the Space Station as part of the Beyond Mission in July
and knows that scientists on Earth are depending on him
What is important is the person is very calm
and knows the instrumentation
and is very careful
because often one mistake is your last mistake
and so I think we’re really very happy that Luca is there
The repair of the Space Station’s largest instrument
will ensure that the AMS
can continue to provide more data
and more groundbreaking science
It has already provided the most precise measurements yet
of high energy cosmic rays
and the first insights into potential antimatter and dark matter
Scientists now want to make sure
that what was observed
resulted from collisions of the elusive and enigmatic dark matter