Excited to see reports that the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), perched on the International Space Station (ISS), is generating data (encountering lots of positrons) that may ultimately confirm the nature/prevalence of dark matter. What’s dark matter? An invisible source of gravity responsible for the structure and clustering of galaxies and such.

The investment in the device was a bit of gamble, costing billions. The first model, intended to use super-cooled magnets,… proved too difficult and costly to assemble into a “flyable” and maintainable package. So a less complex, VBAM (very big-ass magnet) was used in the final experimental package. And it has been working just as the product manual said it would. Yeah for big science!!