Chinese satellite Wukong has been acting for more than a year now in identifying dark matter present in the cosmos. It has recorded the detection of around 1.6 billion particles in the space in one year.
The officials confirmed the news on Saturday. According to the media reports, the next step would be to analyze the dark matter particles obtained from the space to find out what are the factors that lead to abundance of some particles compared to the rest. Wukong was launched with an aim of detecting the dark matter particles and the satellite appears to be fulfilling its objective silently.
Wukong is a DAMPE satellite designed by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CSA). DAMPE stands for Dark Matter Particle Explorer. The satellite was launched on December 17, 2015, at the South Launch Site's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
It was in the 1970s when scientists discovered the presence of dark particles in the cosmos, First Post mentioned. The gravitation effects felt by the experts made them realize the presence of the matter but in scarce. However, the abundance of the some of the particles was discovered gradually. With Wukong, the scientists have initiated a satellite system that could detect the number of the particles present in the space.
Wukong head engineer Wu Jian claimed that the satellite has been developed after being reviewed for calibrated devices to make sure the observations are accurate to the maximum possible extent. According to The Tecake, the satellite was configured with high energy cosmic rays, gamma rays and electrons to help identify the dark matter present in the cosmos.
After almost a year of its launch, Wukong resides in orbit that is located at an altitude of 504 kilometer. It is functioning normally without any reported hassle yet. The Chinese satellite has a space telescope that keeps track of the direction as well as power load occupied by the space matter.
The experts expect that Wukong will complete inspecting all the directions in the cosmos thereby detecting dark matter particles. This will allow scientists to make further studies related to the same.
