Scientists searching for dark matter witnessed the rarest event ever recorded
Researchers with the XENON Collaboration were busy hunting for signs of one of the universe’s biggest mysteries when they observed the radioactive decay of a substance known as xenon-124, an event that has eluded scientists for decades.
But what exactly does this rare physics event tell us? Well, for starters, it proves that xenon-124 is not completely stable. It does decay. We also were able to estimate the half-life of xenon-124. Based on the data the scientists observed, they believe the timescale measures in at around 18 sextillion years.