Scientists may now have their hands on the dark matter, judging from the signals they just got from particles emanating from the phenomenon. Using X-ray observations of galaxies orbiting XMM-Newton telescope, scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA) have been studying signals that they believe to be particles of dark matter.
Astrophysicists from that Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (EPFL) Laboratory of Physics and Cosmology (LPPC) and the Leiden University used X-ray from the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster to study space studies into dark matter in order to determine if the elusive object is now within reach for further examination.
“The signal’s distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter, that is, concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges,” said Oleg Ruchayskiy, a scientist with EPFL.
Researchers are of the mind that normal matter may not have been solely responsible for the manner stars move in galaxies, and to this end, they theorize that dark matter must have existed millions of years ago until astronomers discovered them some decades ago.
The space scientists had earlier believed that stars that were far off from the middle of a galaxy should move much slowly than the ones closer to the center of the galaxy, but they later discovered that both sets of stars moved at nearly the same rates. And researchers believe the existence of a dark matter could have accounted for the irregular way in which galaxies rotate in space.
The dark matter is theorized to emit light and electronic radiation, and the supposed discovery of a signal through x-ray would have been facilitated by the release of a photon called the sterile neutrino.
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