Dark matter is thought to make up roughly 85 percent of all matter in the universe, yet after nearly four decades of increasingly sensitive searches — from deep underground detectors to space-based observations — not a single dark matter particle has ever been directly confirmed.

Dark matter is thought to make up roughly 85 per cent of all the matter in the universe. It appears to outweigh every star, planet, gas cloud and living thing combined by a factor of more than five. And yet, after nearly four decades of increasingly sensitive…