Astronomers have detected a mysterious signal 240 million light years away from Earth, in the Perseus Cluster (top), one of the most massive objects in the Universe. The unidentified signal is a spike of intensity at a very specific wavelength of X-ray light. Scientists dont know yet what is the origin. One of their theories is really interesting: It may be produced by the decay of sterile neutrinos, a type of particle that has been proposed as a candidate for dark matter. According to Esra Bulbul, at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts: We know that the dark matter explanation is a long shot, but the pay-off would be huge if were right. So were going to keep testing this interpretation and see where it takes us.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:09:42 +0000