Gamma-Ray Photons Seen Emanating From The Center Of The Milky Way Could Be Evidence of Dark Matter

Gamma-ray photons seen emanating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy could be evidence of dark matter.

Dark-matter particles are annihilating each other in space, according to UC Irvine astrophysicists, who found more gamma-ray photons coming from the Milky Way galactic center than they had expected, based on previous scientific models.

Kevork Abazajian, assistant professor, and Manoj Kaplinghat, associate professor, of the Department of Physics & Astronomy analyzed data collected between August 2008 and June 2012 from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbiting Earth. If we could wear Fermi's gamma ray "glasses," we'd witness powerful bullets of energy – individual gamma rays – from cosmic phenomena such as supermassive black holes and hypernova explosions. Although the data interpretation seems to be consistent with dark-matter theory, the gamma rays could be coming from a source other than WIMP destruction, Kaplinghat noted.

“The signal we see is also consistent with photons emitted by pulsars,” he said, “or from high-energy particles interacting with gas in the galactic center.”