ABC PODCAST
DARK MATTER
The probe that photographed Pluto in 2015 now finds an excess of brightness in the Cosmic Optical Background (COB) that could be due to the disintegration of axions, candidate particles to be the much sought after dark matter
The hunt for dark matter does not stop. Thousands of scientists around the world are trying for the first time to find a reliable clue that this other type of matter is really there, but so far they have not been able to. Now, an unexpected excess of light beyond the Milky Way, detected by the New Horizons probe, could be evidence of decaying dark matter particles, and therefore the first direct detection of dark matter in history. That is the bold idea that astronomers José Luis Bernal, Gabriela Sato-Polito and Marc Kamionkowski, from Johns Hopkins University, have just suggested in an article published in Physical Review Letters.
According to the researchers, in effect, the light detected by the NASA probe could be due to the decomposition of axions, one of the theoretical particles with which physicists try to explain the nature of dark matter. All the light that is beyond our galaxy, forms, together, the so-called Cosmic Optical Background (COB for its acronym in English). And scientists have spent years trying to unravel the valuable information that this fund contains about the structure and nature of the Universe in which we live.
report a bug