Invisible sheetlike structures, which might pervade space and contribute to dark matter or dark energy, could be revealed as they pass by Earth-based detectors.

One of the potential explanations for the Universe’s mysterious dark matter and dark energy is a cosmic latticework of energetic “domain walls.” In Physical Review Letters, a team proposes the first method to directly detect these structures as the Earth passes through them. They find that if such walls exist and are abundant enough, they may be detectable by a relatively cheap set of sensitive magnetic-field detectors at several locations on Earth.

Dark matter affects the motions of galaxies, and dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe. Together, these two components are estimated to make up some 95 percent of the mass-energy of the Universe, but their nature is a mystery.

To look for the missing stuff, experimenters have searched deep underground for dark…