Saturday, October 18, 2025

SPACE/COSMOS

Mysterious glow in Milky Way could be evidence of dark matter



New simulations tilt the scales for competing theories about excess gamma ray light at the center of the galaxy



Johns Hopkins University





Johns Hopkins researchers may have identified what could be a compelling clue in the ongoing hunt to prove the existence of dark matter. 

A mysterious diffuse glow of gamma rays near the center of the Milky Way has stumped researchers for decades, as they’ve tried to discern whether the light comes from colliding particles of dark matter or quickly spinning neutron stars. 

It turns out that both theories are equally likely, according to new research published today in the journal Physical Review Letters

If excess gamma light is not from dying stars, it could become the first proof that dark matter exists. 

“Dark matter dominates the universe and holds galaxies together. It’s extremely consequential and we’re desperately thinking all the time of ideas as to how we could detect it,” said co-author Joseph Silk, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins and a researer at the Insitut d’Astrophyque de Paris and Sorbonne University. “Gamma rays, and specifically the excess light we’re observing at the center of our galaxy, could be our first clue.”

Silk and an international team of researchers used supercomputers to create maps of where dark matter should be located in the Milky Way, taking into account for the first time the history of how the galaxy formed. 

Today, the Milky Way is a relatively closed system, without materials coming in or going out of it. But this hasn’t always been the case. During the first billion years, many smaller galaxy-like systems made of dark matter and other materials entered and became the building blocks of the young Milky Way. As dark matter particles gravitated toward the center of the galaxy and clustered, the number of dark matter collisions increased. 

When the researchers factored in more realistic collisions, their simulated maps matched actual gamma ray maps taken by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.  

These matching maps round out a triad of evidence that suggests excess gamma rays in the center of the Milky Way could originate with dark matter. Gamma rays coming from dark matter particle collisions would produce the same signal and have the same properties as those observed in the real-world, the researchers said — though it’s not definitive proof. 

Light emitted from reinvigorated, old neutron stars that spin quickly—called millisecond pulsars—could also explain the existing gamma ray map, measurements and signal signature. But, this millisecond pulsar theory is imperfect, the researchers said. To make those calculations work, researchers have to assume there are more millisecond pulsars in existence than what they’ve observed. 

Answers may come with the construction of a huge new gamma ray telescope called the Cherenkov Telescope Array. Researchers believe data from the higher-resolution telescope, which has the capacity to measure high-energy signals, will help astrophysicists break the paradox. 

The research team is planning a new experiment to test whether these gamma rays from the Milky Way have higher energies, meaning they are millisecond pulsars, or are the lower energy product of dark matter collisions. 

“A clean signal would be a smoking gun, in my opinion,” Silk said. 

In the meantime, the researchers will work on predictions about where they should find dark matter in several select dwarf galaxies that circle the Milky Way. Once they’ve mapped their predictions, they can compare them to the hi-res data. 

“It’s possible we will see the new data and confirm one theory over the other,” Silk said. “Or maybe we’ll find nothing, in which case it’ll be an even greater mystery to resolve.”

Are there living microbes on Mars? Check the ice, researchers say



Study by researchers at Penn State and NASA reveals intact biomolecules from dormant microbes degrade far slower in pure water ice than mixed soil samples



Penn State




UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Frozen in time, ancient microbes or their remains could be found in Martian ice deposits during future missions to the Red Planet. By recreating Mars-like conditions in the lab, a team of researchers from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Penn State demonstrated that fragments of the molecules that make up proteins in E. coli bacteria, if present in Mars’ permafrost and ice caps, could remain intact for over 50 million years, despite harsh and continuous exposure to cosmic radiation. In the study, published in Astrobiology, the researchers encouraged future missions searching for life on Mars to target locations with pure ice or ice-dominated permafrost for exploration, as opposed to studying rocks, clay or soil.

“Fifty million years is far greater than the expected age for some current surface ice deposits on Mars, which are often less than two million years old, meaning any organic life present within the ice would be preserved,” said co-author Christopher House, professor of geosciences, affiliate of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Earth and Environment Systems Institute, and director of the Penn State Consortium for Planetary and Exoplanetary Science and Technology. “That means if there are bacteria near the surface of Mars, future missions can find it.”

The research team, led by corresponding author Alexander Pavlov, a space scientist at NASA Goddard — who completed a doctorate in geosciences at Penn State in 2001 — suspended and sealed E. coli bacteria in test tubes containing solutions of pure water ice. Other E. coli samples were mixed with water and ingredients found in Mars sediment, like silicate-based rocks and clay.

The researchers froze the samples and transferred them to a gamma radiation chamber at Penn State’s Radiation Science and Engineering Center, which was cooled to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of icy regions on Mars. Then, the samples were blasted with radiation equivalent to 20 million years of cosmic ray exposure on Mars’ surface, vacuum sealed and transported back to NASA Goddard under cold conditions for amino acid analysis. Researchers modelled an additional 30 years of radiation for a total 50-million-year timespan.

In pure water ice, more than 10% of the amino acids — the molecular building blocks of proteins — from the E. coli sample survived the simulated 50-million-year timespan, while the samples containing Mars-like sediment degraded 10 times faster and did not survive. A 2022 study by the same group of researchers at NASA found that amino acids preserved in a 10% water ice and 90% Martian soil mixture were destroyed more rapidly than samples containing only sediment.

“Based on the 2022 study findings, it was thought that organic material in ice or water alone would be destroyed even more rapidly than the 10% water mixture,” Pavlov said. “So, it was surprising to find that the organic materials placed in water ice alone are destroyed at a much slower rate than the samples containing water and soil.”

That degradation could be due to a slippery film that forms in areas where ice touches minerals, the researchers hypothesized, allowing radiation to reach and destroy amino acids.

“While in solid ice, harmful particles created by radiation get frozen in place and may not be able to reach organic compounds,” Pavlov said. “These results suggest that pure ice or ice-dominated regions are an ideal place to look for recent biological material on Mars.”

In addition to testing for conditions on Mars, researchers also tested organic material in temperatures similar to those on Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn. They found that these even colder temperatures further reduced the rate of deterioration.

Those results are encouraging to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, Pavlov said, which will explore the ice shell and ocean of Europa, the fourth largest of Jupiter’s of 95 moons. Europa Clipper launched in 2024 and is traveling 1.8 billion miles to reach Jupiter in 2030. It will conduct 49 close flybys of Europa to assess whether there are places below the surface that could support life.

For exploring ice on Mars, the 2008 NASA Mars Phoenix mission was the first to excavate down and capture photos of ice in the Mars equivalent of the Arctic Circle.

“There is a lot of ice on Mars, but most of it is just below the surface,” House said. “Future missions need a large enough drill or a powerful scoop to access it, similar to the design and capabilities of Phoenix.”

In addition to House and Pavlov, the co-authors include Zhidan Zhang, a retired lab technologist in the Penn State Department of Geosciences; and Hannah McLain, Kendra Farnsworth, Daniel Glavin, Jamie Elsila and Jason Dworkin, all researchers at NASA Goddard.

NASA’s Planetary Science Division Internal Scientist Funding Program through the Fundamental Laboratory Research work package at Goddard Space Flight Center supported this research.

At Penn State, researchers are solving real problems that impact the health, safety and quality of life of people across the commonwealth, the nation and around the world. 

For decades, federal support for research has fueled innovation that makes our country safer, our industries more competitive and our economy stronger. Recent federal funding cuts threaten this progress. 

Learn more about the implications of federal funding cuts to our future at Research or Regress.

Planet formation depends on when it happens: UNLV model shows why



In new study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, collaboration of scientists detail recent observations explaining how planets form over time.



University of Nevada, Las Vegas





A new study led by UNLV scientists sheds light on how planets, including Earth, formed in our galaxy – and why the life and death of nearby stars are an important piece of the puzzle. 

In a paper published Sept. 23 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers at UNLV in collaboration with scientists from the Open University of Israel for the first time modeled details about how the timing of planet formation in the history of the galaxy affects planetary composition and density. 

“Materials that go into making planets are formed inside of stars that have different lifetimes,” says Jason Steffen, associate professor with the UNLV Department of Physics and Astronomy and the paper’s lead author. “These findings help explain why older, rocky planets are less dense than younger planets like the Earth, and also suggest that the necessary ingredients for life didn’t arrive all at once.”

Timing is Everything in Planetary Construction

All the basic elements that make up planets – like oxygen, silicon, iron, and nickel – are formed inside stars. Planets are essentially built from the debris of dying stars, but the stars die on vastly different timelines which can influence the structure of forming planets as a result. 

High-mass stars burn out relatively quickly, typically within 10 million years, and when they explode they scatter lighter elements like oxygen, silicon, and magnesium into space. These materials are generally what make up the outer layers of rocky planets. 

Low-mass stars live for billions of years and release heavier elements like iron and nickel, key elements for the formation of planetary cores.

Planets forming in solar systems where both high-mass and low-mass stars had time to contribute materials to the planetary disk will contain a greater variety of those elements. Those forming from the evolution and death of high-mass stars tend to have larger mantles and smaller cores. When time is allowed for low-mass stars to contribute heavier elements with greater abundance, such as iron and nickel, planet cores are larger.  

Over the last decade, the research team had created software models for various niche projects, but only recently realized that it had all the pieces to create the first fully integrated planet formation model of this kind.

“It was like having the solution in hand, waiting for the right problem. When the new observations were published, we realized we could model the full system with just a small addition of code at the beginning,” says Steffen.

This simulation tracks the entire life cycle of planet formation from star birth and element synthesis to explosions, collisions, planet formation, and the planetary internal structure.

“One implication of these findings is that the conditions for life don’t start immediately,” says Steffen. “A lot of the elements needed for a habitable planet, and for living organisms, are made available at different times throughout galactic history.” 

Publication Details

The paper, “Effect of Galactic Chemical Evolution on Exoplanet Properties,” was published Sept. 23, 2025 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In addition to Steffen, collaborators include Cody Shakespeare and Robert Royer with the Nevada Center for Astrophysics and UNLV Department of Physics and Astronomy; and David Rice and Allona Vazan with the Astrophysics Research Center at The Open University of Israel. 

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