Scientists use the Milky Way to hunt for dark matter

[Judi Lynn]

By Chelsea Gohd - Space.com 11 days ago



cientists think that dark matter produces a bright and spherical halo of X-ray emission around the center of the Milky Way.
(Image: © Artistic rendering by Christopher Dessert, Nicholas L. Rodd, Benjamin R. Safdi, Zosia Rostomian (Berkeley Lab), based on data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope.)

Scientists studying a mysterious signal from far-off galaxies didn't find dark matter as they'd hoped. But the inventive new technique they used to detect this strange signal, which uses our own galaxy to hunt for dark matter, could elevate the hunt for the elusive material.

For decades, scientists have been searching for dark matter, an invisible material that doesn't interact with light but which permeates our entire universe. And a signal coming from a nearby galaxy spotted in a 2014 study gave scientists hope that this was the long-sought evidence for dark matter.

Some current models predict that dark matter particles slowly decay into ordinary matter, a process that would produce faint photon emissions that X-ray telescopes could detect. And in 2014, scientists spotted an X-ray emission from a galaxy in a dark matter hunt, as it's known that dark matter collects around galaxies.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/dark-matter-hunt-milky-way-sterile-neutrinos.html