Scientists may be one step closer to unlocking one of the great mysteries of the universe after calculating that neutron stars might hold a key to helping us understand elusive dark matter.
physicists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, led by the University of Melbourne, calculated that energy transferred when dark matter particles collide and annihilate inside cold dead neutron stars can heat the stars up very quickly.
"The search for dark matter is one of the greatest detective stories in science. Dark matter makes up 85 per cent of the matter in our universe, yet we can't see it. Dark matter doesn't interact with light -- it doesn't absorb light, it doesn't reflect light, it doesn't emit light. This means our telescopes can't directly observe it, even though we know it exists. Instead, its gravitational pull on objects we can see tells us it must be there.
"While dark matter is the dominant type of matter in the Universe, it is very hard to detect because its interactions with ordinary matter are very weak. So weak, in fact, that dark matter can pass straight through the Earth, or even through the Sun. "If the energy transfer happens quickly enough, the neutron star would be heated up. For this to happen, the dark matter must undergo many collisions in the star, transferring more and more of the dark matter's energy until, eventually, all the energy has been deposited in the star," Mr Virgato said.
"If we are to understand dark matter -- which is everywhere -- it is critical that we use every technique at our disposal to figure out what the hidden matter of our universe actually is," Mr Virgato said.
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