A team of astrophysicists is looking for dark matter in the form of subhalos. These clumps of dark matter within the Milky Way are predicted to produce a distinctive gamma-ray signal. Image courtesy of The Aquarius Project In addition to teaching us about pulsars, cosmic rays and supermassive black holes, the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope is one of the world’s premier dark matter experiments. In many models, the interactions of dark matter particles can create energetic photons, known as…
An intensity map of the (1- to 3-GeV) gamma-ray excess seen in the direction around the Galactic Center. The spectrum, spatial distribution and brightness of this signal agree well with that expected from annihilating dark matter particles. Are we seeing dark matter in the gamma-ray sky? It sure looks that way. Since early in the mission of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, a number of scientists have noticed an interesting and fairly bright signal coming from the direction of the…
Scientists have seen evidence of gamma-ray bubbles extending tens of thousands of light-years north and south of the Galactic Center. A new study finds that some of this gamma-ray emission may be the result of annihilating dark-matter particles. Image: NASA Although it’s been two and a half years since a group of Harvard astrophysicists discovered a pair of bright “bubbles” in data from the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, the origin of these gamma-rays is still not well understood. Last summer,…