Image credit: Yury Suvorov for the DarkSide collaboration

A leading candidate explanation, motivated by supersymmetry theory, is that dark matter is comprised of as yet undiscovered Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) formed in the early universe and subsequently gravitationally clustered in association with baryonic matter. WIMPs could in principle be detected in terrestrial experiments through their collisions with ordinary nuclei, giving observable low-energy (<100 keV) nuclear recoils. The predicted low collision rates require ultra-low background detectors with large (0.1–10 ton) target masses, located in deep underground sites to eliminate neutron background from cosmic ray muons.The Darkside of Gran Sasso

Also See: Cern Courier: The DarkSide of Gran Sasso

Dialogos of Eide