Finding Dark Matter: Milky Way's Dwarf Neighbor the Key?

Milky Way's dwarf neighbor 98,000 light years away, the Reticulum 2, could hold the key to the elusive Dark Matter.

Researchers sifting through NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope data spotted gamma radiation from the dwarf galaxy Reticulum 2. Given dwarf galaxies are quiet systems which have very little going on in them, researchers are intrigued. Any activity, particularly in the spectrum of gamma rays, could point to dark matter's workings, researchers believe, according to The New York Times.

"In the search for dark matter, gamma rays from a dwarf galaxy have long been considered a very strong signature. It seems like we may now be detecting such a thing for the first time," said Brown University's Savvas Koushiappas in a news release.

Carnegie Mellon University's Alex Geringer-Sameth notes, "Something in the direction of this dwarf galaxy is emitting gamma rays. There's no conventional reason this galaxy should be giving off gamma rays, so it's potentially a signal for dark matter."

Dark matter is now accepted to constitute 80 percent of the universe and has only been known by the gravitational force exerted on visible matter including galaxies. Very little is known about its particle nature.

According to Discovery News, a leading theory suggests that dark matter comprises Weakly Interacting Massive Particles or WIMPS. These particles collide to annihilate each other, consequently spewing gamma radiation. What makes their seemingly straightforward detection from gamma rays difficult is there are other phenomena, including black holes, which emit gamma rays.

The scientific community has its eyes fixed on the Large Hadron Collider which aims to detect dark matter when it begins operations later this year.