Australia’s bid to detect elusive dark matter has taken a major step forward, with new research confirming that cosmic radiation levels deep inside the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) are low enough to support the world-class experiment that will commence later this year.

ARC Center of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics researchers recorded muon —or cosmic radiation—levels inside and outside the laboratory for more than a year. They detected 30,000 muons inside the underground laboratory, while 8.4 billion muons would be expected to be detected on the surface of Earth.

The SABRE Collaboration paper, published in Astroparticle Physics, is the first to use data collected in SUPL, marking a major achievement for Australian and international scientists involved in the project.