Researchers from Stanford University and Stockholm University think that the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, may be suitable as a particle detector. He can trace astronomers to the enigmatic dark matter that makes up 85 percent of all matter in the universe. (The remaining 15 percent is matter as we know it.)
Dark matter is one of the greatest scientific issues of the moment. The existence of this hypothetical substance is inferred from the gravitational influence it exerts on stars and galaxies. But because dark matter is not directly observable with telescopes, it is not easy to determine what it consists of.
The most obvious idea is that dark matter is made up of exotic particles. These particles should then either be very small or hardly interact with ‘normal’ matter. However, experiments with particle accelerators intended to demonstrate the existence of these hypothetical particles have so far failed to yield any results.
There is also another way to search for dark matter. The mysterious stuff could accumulate in objects that have a lot of mass: in our sun, for example, or in a large planet like Jupiter. In these celestial bodies collisions can then take place between dark matter particles, which destroy each other in the process. And that process would release gamma rays.
To investigate this possibility, Rebecca Leane (Stanford) and Tim Linden (Stockholm) aimed the space telescope Fermi at Jupiter. Fermi has been recording gamma rays of cosmic origin for over ten years.
Dark matter has not yet been found with certainty, but an intriguing surplus of relatively ‘soft’ (relatively energy-poor) gamma rays has been observed at Jupiter. Fermi is not very sensitive to this type of gamma radiation, so Leane and Linden have now placed their hopes on future gamma telescopes such as AMEFI and e-ASTROGRAM. Leane also thinks it will be possible to use massive exoplanets or brown dwarf stars as dark matter detectors. (EE)
Jupiter could make an ideal dark matter detector –
