The world of astronomy has recently invested exorbitant research resources into projects that will help us discover the secrets of dark matter. Everything indicates that a great breakthrough can take place in this matter next year, thanks to the discovery of a mysterious, extremely intense source of radiation from the depths of space.
The phenomenon is known as the 3.5-kiloelectronvoltage line (3.5 keV) and was registered in 2014 by four telescopes observing various parts of the Earth's sky, namely NuSTAR, XMM-Newton, Chandra and Suzaku.
This is one of the most mysterious signals attempting to unravel science. Since then, it has not been possible to find out which object is responsible for this emission.
Astronomer Nico Cappelluti from the University of Miami and Esry Bulbul, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, published in The Astrophysical Journal and titled "Searching for the 3.5 keV line in the deep fields with Chandra: the 10 MS observations."
"When searching for the source of this phenomenon, our telescopes recorded a radiation spectrum that does not come from any known atomic emission," says Nico Cappelluti, author of research on the 3.5 keV line, "says the line is caused by the disintegration of dark matter.
Scientists believe that the source of X-ray radiation is sterile neutrino, or the decaying dark matter that surrounds our galaxy, creating a bubble.
In the fall of this year, astronomers from around the world will gather at the University of Miami and will attempt to quickly analyze the huge amounts of data collected during recent observations.
"If it turns out that we are right, we will find out what dark matter is, and this can be one of the major discoveries in physics," added Cappelluti.
We keep our fingers crossed because, as Nico Cappelluti and Esra Bulbul say, mysterious dark matter accounts for as much as 95 percent of the mass of the entire Universe. So if we get more information about it, we will open the door to learn about many other fascinating phenomena.