A Long March 2-D rocket carrying the Dark Matter Particle Explorer Satellite blasts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu Province, Dec. 17, 2015. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
China launches its first dark matter satellite
China successfully launched its first dark matter satellite at a launch center in Northwest China's Gansu province on Dec 17. The satellite, nicknamed "Wukong", is named after the heroic Monkey King in Chinese class novel the Journey to the West.
Designed in a one-cubic-meter box weighing 1.9 metric tons and with four probes aboard, in the next three years, Wukong will search for dark matter, a theoretical form of matter which is believed to make up a very large part of the cosmos and holds the key to understanding the phenomena that could not be explained with current knowledge of physics.
