Dark matter satellite still ticking; 2 more years expected

NANJING - China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer, nicknamed Wukong, or Monkey King, will extend its service in space by two years, as it is still in good condition and collecting important scientific data, researchers said on Monday.

The team operating the satellite said that Wukong's key performance indicators have barely changed since it was launched three years ago as China's first satellite to probe dark matter, the mysterious substance theorized in astrophysics that pervades "empty" space.

On Monday, the satellite reached its expected service life of three years, having orbited the earth 16,597 times in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers. It detected around 5.5 billion cosmic particles.