Enter the DarkSide

A wide range of astrophysical measurements evidence that the stars and gas in all galaxies are immersed in a much larger cloud of non-luminous and non-baryonic dark matter. The nature of the dark matter is still totally unknown, and the resolution of the dark matter puzzle is of fundamental importance to cosmology, astrophysics, and elementary particle physics. One of the major lines of researches directing their efforts at detection of dark matter is direct searches of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with detectors operated in deep underground laboratories. The new generation of direct searches of WIMPs promises to probe the most interesting region of parameters for the dark matter candidates. I will review and describe the DarkSide-50 underground Argon detector at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso.