Sun might hold secret of dark matter

The identity of the mysterious dark matter thought to pervade the universe has eluded astrophysicists for decades. Now, for the first time a team hopes to look inside the sun for one of the prime candidates.

The invisible stuff called dark matter is thought to make up as much as 90 percent of the universe's matter. To date, astrophysicists have only inferred the existence of some mysterious substance by identifying its gravitational effects on visible matter such as stars and galaxies. (For instance, dark matter makes galaxies spin faster than otherwise expected.)

The sun is thought to possibly be a factory for these axions. When photons at the sun's core feel a magnetic field, they become axions, the thinking goes. Since the teensy particles only weakly interact with ordinary matter, they are thought to easily fly through the sun's core toward the surface unimpeded by other particles. Once at the solar corona, where the sun's magnetic field is strong, the axions would convert back into photons.

As is often the case, it seems that the answers to the questions we ask are closer than we initially thought.

Maybe the probe we are sending up might help shed some light on his as well.

This may lead to finally identifying and more importantly proving the existence of dark matter. Who knows what advances we can make with technology and maybe even space travel if this happens. We may even have to reconsider out current gravity model.

It looks like there are exciting times ahead.

Sun might hold secret of dark matter


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[edit on 18-6-2008 by Jbird]