Scientists Say Dark Matter May Be Giving Off a Signal

Dark matter, the invisible stuff that scientists believe makes up around 85 percent of the mass in the universe, remains one of science's biggest mysteries. As far as anyone has been able to establish, it can't be directly observed. The only way we know about its existence is inferred from the gravitational effects it exerts on stars and galaxies. But as detailed in a new paper published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers says that it may be giving off a signal. So they want to build a new type of detector they liken to a "cosmic car radio," that could listen to what the dark matter is saying and perhaps crack its mysteries. Such a device would "tune in" to the frequency of axions, hypothetical particles that have emerged as one of the leading candidates for what dark matter is. "We can now build a dark matter detector that is essentially a cosmic car radio, tuning into the frequencies of the wider galaxy until we find the axion," said King’s College London ... Read full article.