Could planned underground lab in WC help solve one of the biggest mysteries of the universe?

Clarence Ford speaks to Prof Richard Newman, nuclear physicist from Stellenbosch University about plans to build Africa's first deep underground science laboratory at the Huguenot tunnel.

It's one of the big mysteries of the world. Dark matter. What is it and how is it made?

They're questions that have been baffling scientists for years, and now a project planned for the Western Cape could help bring research boffins closer to an answer.

Plans are underway to, in the next five to ten years, build Africa's first deep underground science laboratory. 

The Paarl Africa Underground Laboratory would be accessed via the existing Huguenot tunnel and would enable local scientists to join a worldwide campaign seeking to find out more about the mysterious stuff that fills the universe but no one has ever seen.

'We cannot see it, we cannot smell it, we cannot taste it, it does not reflect light or emit light so it is really a mystery'

Prof. Richard Newman, a nuclear physicist from Stellenbosch University's (SU) Department of Physics

Newman explains why this particular location underneath the Du Toits Kloof mountain is being considered:

'To have the mountain act as a barrier to radiation from outer space. That way we can look for a very faint signal which we expect to be associated with dark matter.'

Prof. Richard Newman, a nuclear physicist from Stellenbosch University's (SU) Department of Physics

Newman says there are a number of reasons to justify the establishment of the lab in South Africa:

'From a scientific perspective, for example, we would be interested in how an experiment of direct dark matter in an underground laboratory in the Southern hemisphere will compare to a similar experiment in the Northern hemisphere'

Prof. Richard Newman, a nuclear physicist from Stellenbosch University's (SU) Department of Physics

He adds that the kudos of being the first country in the world to discover the what, why and how of dark matter would have global significance:

'Put it this way, if anyone should detect dark matter definitively, that group or that person would be awarded a Nobel Prize'

Prof. Richard Newman, a nuclear physicist from Stellenbosch University's (SU) Department of Physics