{"id":97215,"date":"2025-10-22T15:11:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/97215\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:11:06","slug":"astronomers-hope-a-mysterious-glow-in-the-milky-way-is-what-they-think-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/97215\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Hope a Mysterious Glow in the Milky Way Is What They Think It Is"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all the discoveries we\u2019re making of faraway galaxies, we\u2019re still\u00a0struggling to fully understand our own galaxy<\/a>, the Milky Way. For example, researchers have known for decades of an odd concentration of gamma rays<\/a> near the center of the Milky Way, although they weren\u2019t sure where the high-energy light was coming from.<\/p>\n

A new study proposes an entirely new perspective\u2014that the light may actually be coming from neutron stars, as astronomers have suspected. If not, however, this could be the \u201cfirst proof\u201d of dark matter, according to the paper, published recently in Physical Review Letters<\/a>. Given the evolution of the Milky Way, the researchers argue that the gamma ray excess most likely emerged from the collision of dark matter particles, the researchers claim.<\/p>\n

The matter in question <\/p>\n

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope first observed<\/a> signs of these excess gamma rays in 2009. Since then, researchers have come up with various explanations for how the Milky Way ended up with this phenomenon, from energetic stars to simple instrumental errors.<\/p>\n

Dark matter, on the other hand, refers to the \u201cmissing\u201d mass constituting around 85% of our universe. Numerous investigations, both theoretical and experimental, have given ample evidence<\/a> that it exists.<\/p>\n

But the elusive stuff\u2014for which scientists have proposed a range of candidate particles<\/a>\u2014rarely interacts with anything we can see. Scientists have devised numerous ways<\/a> to indirectly search for dark matter, but no one has quite arrived at a definitive answer yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cDark matter dominates the universe and holds galaxies together,\u201d Joseph Silk, study co-author and an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, said in a release. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely consequential and we\u2019re desperately thinking all the time of ideas as to how we could detect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe, maybe not <\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the<\/a> first time<\/a> that researchers have suggested the Milky Way\u2019s excess gamma rays have something to do with dark matter. But the new findings offer some promising theoretical support for this idea, which the paper notes could be vital in the search for dark matter lying \u201cat a crossroads in the absence of any direct detection results from a number of deep underground experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s simulations trace the Milky Way from its beginnings, testing different ideas about how the mysterious gamma-ray glow could have formed. And the numbers add up rather nicely if we assume that the gamma rays come from dark matter particle collisions\u2014\u201dthough it\u2019s not definitive proof,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n

Then again, the model also worked decently for fast-spinning, older neutron stars emitting light. However, there was a small margin of error, as the team had to assume that the number of such light sources\u2014millisecond pulsars\u2014was higher than what was actually confirmed by observations.<\/p>\n

Still, given how little we know about dark matter, the new findings aren\u2019t conclusive, and the researchers acknowledge as much. The team does plan on continuing its investigations, however, in time for the activation of the Cherenkov Telescope Array\u2014the next-generation telescope for gamma ray observations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible we will see the new data and confirm one theory over the other,\u201d Silk said. \u201cOr maybe we\u2019ll find nothing, in which case it\u2019ll be an even greater mystery to resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For all the discoveries we\u2019re making of faraway galaxies, we\u2019re still\u00a0struggling to fully understand our own galaxy, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[909,1747,55251,61,60,13922,248,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-97215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-astrophysics","9":"tag-dark-matter","10":"tag-gamma-rays","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-milky-way","14":"tag-physics","15":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}