The Standard Model is a set of rules for all known particles. But it says nothing about dark matter, which makes up a quarter of the Universe. To find it, you don't need to build city-sized colliders. Radioactive molecules act like sniffer dogs: their incredible 'scent' picks up the faintest traces of unknown forces that slip past giant machines. The secret lies in combining nuclear instability, which amplifies the signal many times over, with precise molecular architecture. Laser spectroscopy (probing with light) allows us to measure their properties with fantastic accuracy. The discoveries of Rutherford and Curie laid the foundation, and today's traps made of electric and magnetic fields hold samples while they 'sniff out' invisible particles. Astonishingly, some of these molecules live for just billionths of a second but manage to detect the influence of hypothetical particles millions of times lighter than an electron. This paves the way for the direct detection of dark matter and new physics.
Lasers cool these molecules to near absolute zero — at this temperature they freeze in place, allowing scientists to 'sniff' them without disturbance.