Missing Matter

There'll be better answers coming when Cavediver and Son Goku find this thread, but I can tell you a little bit.Just as you say, normal matter is affected by the gravity of dark matter. That's how we know it's out there, from its gravity. But we can only detect the gravity of massive amounts of matter. The paltry number of particles produced by colliders quickly decay and/or flit and scatter away.Some of the theorized candidate particles for dark matter exist at higher energy levels than can be detected by existing colliders, and the LHC may find some of these particles. But I don't know how scientists expect to establish a connection between new particles detected by the LHC and the dark matter detected by our telescopes.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

There have been two candidates for the dark matter originally detected back in the 1930s, MACHOs and WIMPs. MACHO stands for MAssive Compact Halo Object, which would be objects too small or cold to give off detectable electromagnetic radiation. WIMP stands for Weakly Interactive Massive Particle, which is sort of self-explanatory. The possibility of MACHOs has fallen increasingly out of favor over the past decade or so. Astrophysicists are expecting to find that the vast majority of dark matter consists of WIMPs, which is why they think the LHC might detect the particle or particles that make up dark matter.--Percy