Astrophysicist Prof Tomonori Totani says research could be crucial breakthrough in search for elusive substance
Nearly a century ago, scientists proposed that a mysterious invisible substance they named dark matter clumped around galaxies and formed a cosmic web across the universe.
What dark matter is made from, and whether it is even real, are still open questions, but according to a study, the first direct evidence of the substance may finally have been glimpsed.
More work is needed to rule out less exotic explanations, but if true, the discovery would go down as a turning point in the decades-long search for the elusive substance that is said to make up 27% of the cosmos.
“This could be a crucial breakthrough in unraveling the nature of dark matter,” said Prof Tomonori Totani, an astrophysicist at the University of Tokyo, who said gamma rays emanating from the centre of the Milky Way appeared to bear the signature of the substance.
Details are published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
How can something we haven’t found yet be based on direct observation?
Confusingly, direct observation does not mean the same thing as direct detection.
This study “directly observes” a hypothetical dark matter signal. However this is distinct from direct detection experiments, where a dark matter particle is found in a collider.
Is there a reason scientists decide to ignore what words mean when they name shit?
They’re human like everyone else, and try to use language that is specific and descriptive. In this case the word direct observation has become to mean something very specific In the field of astrophysics. It’s not out of malice or anything, just results from the difficulty of scientific writing, so you use words that already have established meaning.