An unusual signal picked up by a European space observatory could be the first direct detection of dark matter particles, astronomers say. The findings are tentative and could take several years to check, but if confirmed they would represent a dramatic advance in scientists’ understanding of the universe.
Dark matter cannot be seen, but the mysterious substance is thought to make up about 85 per cent of all the matter in the universe. The web of dark matter that stretches through space Sis believed to give the cosmos its structure, although so far it has eluded direct detection by physicists.
Researchers at Leicester University spotted the curious signal in 15 years of measurements taken by the European Space Agency’s orbiting XMM-Newton observatory. They noticed that the intensity of x-rays recorded by the spacecraft rose by about 10 per cent whenever it observed the boundary of Earth’s magnetic field that faces towards the sun.
Andy Read, an astronomer on the team, said that conventional models of the universe failed to explain the effect. Once galaxies, stars and other bright x-ray sources have been filtered out, he said, the intensity of x-rays in space was expected to be the same whenever measurements were taken.
Read added that a similar signal had been detected by Nasa’s Chandra x-ray observatory. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2014