Mysterious signal from the center of the Perseus Cluster unexplained by known physics !

Maybe we a closer to finding dark matter actually exist outside some theoretical postulation ? Either way it is new and those who study such things were surprised and excited.

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to explore the Perseus Cluster, a swarm of galaxies approximately 250 million light years from Earth, have observed the spectral line that appears not to come from any known type of matter. The signal they received can not be explained by known physics but they say it shifts suspicion to the dark matter.

Moreover, about a week after Bulbul team posted their paper online, a different group led by Alexey Boyarsky of Leiden University in the Netherlands reported evidence for the same spectral line in XMM-Newton observations of the Andromeda galaxy. They also confirmed the line in the outskirts of the Perseus cluster.

"After we submitted the paper, theoreticians came up with about 60 different dark matter types which could explain this line. Some particle physicists have jokingly called this particle a 'bulbulon'," she laughs.

thewatchers.adorraeli.com...

a reply to: 727Sky

Interesting find OP.

The part I found amusing is, that if they still don't know what dark matter is, and haven't even come up with a way to describe it hypothetically, why would they make this statement:

After we submitted the paper, theoreticians came up with about 60 different dark matter types which could explain this line.

I would expect that before you can come up with 60 types of something, you have to know what that something is first?

~Namaste

a reply to: 727Sky

Interesting story , it would be nice to find some confirmation of the existence of Dark Matter


It will be interesting to see if they can confirm their observations.

“We know that the dark matter explanation is a long shot, but the pay-off would be huge if we’re right,” said Esra Bulbul of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts who led the study. “So we’re going to keep testing this interpretation and see where it takes us.”
scitechdaily.com...

I was naturally drawn to the title of this thread -

Am I the only one who thought advanced intelligent life from elsewhere?

I like many rely on others to confirm the physics, but waiting patiently for advances towards peace and space.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

Good point, I've been wondering that myself, its the old situation of entering a room and finding someone searching methodically and asking...

'Whatcha lookin for?

'Dunno, I'll know when I find it!'

Its such a fascinating topic and I do believe that when man finally unravels the mystery of dark matter, the universe will really open up for us.

?
why would a spectral line from Dark Matter (or rather Dark Energy) occupy a band of the physical Universe's Electro-Magnetic Spectrum

that idea does not compute

however... a possible cousin to the ever popular "Tachyon" would reveal itself in our standard EM spectrum:


Tachyon -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Physics
scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Tachyon.html Cached
Tachyons are a putative class of particles which able to travel faster than the speed of light. Tachyons were first proposed by physicist Arnold Sommerfeld,


hemmm?

Sounds like a Quasar spewing off rays of dark matter


An artist’s conception of jets protruding from an Quasar

a reply to: St Udio

?
why would a spectral line from Dark Matter (or rather Dark Energy) occupy a band of the physical Universe's Electro-Magnetic Spectrum

that idea does not compute

Same here…? If it registers as a line on the spectrometer isn't that because it is programmed into the software as an identifiable element on the periodic chart?

Edit to add: Otherwise, wouldn't it be off the chart and therefore not detected?

Help for confused layman…

originally posted by: SonOfTheLawOfOne
I would expect that before you can come up with 60 types of something, you have to know what that something is first?

That's what theoretical physics is. Coming up with as many explanations for something as possible. They need to imagine and theorize what could be possible so that experimental physicists have something to try and prove or disprove.

This is a very interesting discovery. Only time will tell what physicists will be able to do with this new information.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

That's exactly backwards.

In fact - one of the best ways to understand what an unknown actually *is* is to first discover what it is not.

EDIT: for example - I am setting up a lathe, and it is not making me a good part. We have done this job 1000 times in the last 10 years. Is it the program? Unlikely, as it has proven to work in the past. Are the tools new? If anything has been used from a previous job, there is a chance it might be. Check that. Is it tool height? Check that. Etc.

Please note that this is only part of the troubleshooting process. In this case, there are likely teams or individuals analyzing the data to make sure this isn't a computer error, and so on. While this is going on, others are speculating. Most of these speculations can be immediately back-burnered as unlikely causes, but often -- speaking them aloud -- is part of a process where the most unlikely is eliminated quickly until only a handful of likely explanations remain. At this point, the hard science begins.

Good find.

Hopefully this is another leap forward in scientific knowledge of the Universe and reality.

Another form of atomic transition that is detectable in the X-ray spectrum, sounds like an interesting discovery!

I like the string theory dimensions hypothesis but something makes me think it might be new and exciting but a simpler answer.

I do feel that science is on the verge of very major and important discoveries though.

thewatchers.adorraeli.com...

"I couldn't believe my eyes," says Esra Bulbul of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics. "What we found, at first glance, could not be explained by known physics."

"The cluster's atmosphere is full of ions such as Fe XXV, Si XIV, and S XV. Each one produces a 'bump' or 'line' in the x-ray spectrum, which we can map using Chandra. These spectral lines are at well-known x-ray energies."
Yet, in 2012 when Bulbul added together 17 day's worth of Chandra data, a new line popped up where no line should be.

"A line appeared at 3.56 keV (kilo-electron volts) which does not correspond to any known atomic transition," she says. "It was a great surprise."

Moreover, about a week after Bulbul team posted their paper online, a different group led by Alexey Boyarsky of Leiden University in the Netherlands reported evidence for the same spectral line in XMM-Newton observations of the Andromeda galaxy. They also confirmed the line in the outskirts of the Perseus cluster.

"After we submitted the paper, theoreticians came up with about 60 different dark matter types which could explain this line. Some particle physicists have jokingly called this particle a 'bulbulon'," she laughs.

The menagerie of dark matter candidates that might produce this kind of line include axions, sterile neutrinos, and "moduli dark matter" that may result from the curling up of extra dimensions in string theory.

There is uncertainty in these results, in part, because the detection of this emission line is pushing the capabilities of both Chandra and XMM-Newton in terms of sensitivity. ​

More data and investigation will be needed to confirm both the signal's existence and nature.

Dark Matter Is Colors.

a reply to: Soapusmaximus

Yup, I was the same with you on this.

No one will ever discover the existence of dark matter. Or dark energy. They are just substitutes for the words "I don't know."

a reply to: Mon1k3r

Who Do You Think You Are? Me?

fascinating. you know this could be a computational error or a glitch. but if it's real it can mean many wonderful things.

dark matter is one. but it could be something else. how about exotic matter, monopoles. or matter whose nucleons are made up of different quark combinations than normal matter or super symmetrical particles? There are a lot of possibilities. i hope it's not some sort of spurious detection.

S&F OP.

A L I E N S

a reply to: Staroth

Is your space bar broken?

This reminds me that I am sure some TV program stated that 'they' have yet to find a chorofill band in any of the spectrum's they take of stars, so that substance being vital for plant growth, makes me think that as there are no plants out there, no animals either, therefore no humanoids? so we are alone?