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Steel produced during and since the second world war … a lot of steel ended up with a component of radioactivity that was remnants from weapons testing,” Urquijo says. “When you produce steel, you have a combination of new steel from iron ore and recycled iron. The leftover sprinkles of radioactive dust from atomic bombs have infected metals since the second world war, meaning many people trying to detect dark matter have to source metals from before the bombs were set off. The cavern is covered with a net and sprayed over with a type of concrete. “We can block out the sun’s cosmic rays, but the rock and any material that we use in the construction of the experiment can contain naturally occurring radioactivity.” “We put the experiment deep underground, as deep as we could in Australia, in one of the first operating goldmines,” Urquijo says. Photograph: ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle PhysicsĪt the lab, there is 1,000 metres of rock between the researchers and the surface, slabs of rock to block cosmic rays. The lab for dark matter hunters is due to be completed in the new year.