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The sun could be a net for dark matter, a new study suggests. If dark matter happens to take a certain specific form, it could build up in our nearest star and alter how heat moves inside it in a way that would be observable from Earth.
"The sun has been whizzing around the galaxy for 5 billion years, sweeping up all the dark matter as it goes," Sarkar said.
The buildup of dark matter could solve a pressing problem in solar physics, called the solar composition problem. Sensitive observations of waves on the sun's surface have revealed that the sun has a much easier time transporting heat from its interior to its surface than standard models predict it should.
Dark matter particles are thought to absorb energy in the hottest, central parts of the core. They then travel to different regions of the sun before scattering again and ‘re-depositing their energy,’ the researchers write. This reduces the central temperature and moves heat elsewhere. But this same effect also leads to lower nuclear fusion rates in the core, so the sun compensates by pumping more hydrogen into its core - keeping its luminosity constant. This has an effect of lowering the pressure towards the sun’s surface.
A few of the dark matter particles passing through the Sun or Earth may scatter off atoms and lose energy. Thus dark matter may accumulate at the center of these bodies, increasing the chance of collision/annihilation. This could produce a distinctive signal in the form of high-energy neutrinos. Such a signal would be strong indirect proof of WIMP dark matter. High-energy neutrino telescopes such as AMANDA, IceCube and ANTARES are searching for this signal. The detection by LIGO in September 2015 of gravitational waves, opens the possibility of observing dark matter in a new way, particularly if it is the form of primordial black holes.
Many experimental searches have been undertaken to look for such emission from dark matter annihilation or decay, examples of which follow. The Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope observed more gamma rays in 2008 than expected from the Milky Way, but scientists concluded that this was most likely due to incorrect estimation of the telescope's sensitivity.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is searching for similar gamma rays. In April 2012, an analysis of previously available data from its Large Area Telescope instrument produced statistical evidence of a 130 GeV signal in the gamma radiation coming from the center of the Milky Way.WIMP annihilation was seen as the most probable explanation.
It's funny, but, 30 minutes after I uploaded the video to YouTube, NASA included images from the LASCO C2 LASSO C3 tools with absolutely clean images. Hey, NASA! You're watching my work! NASA! Why did you turn the image over when the dark matter appeared?
originally posted by: shawmanfromny
NASA then turned off the observation instruments LASCO C2 and LASCO C3 and offered no explanation or data from monitoring instruments concerninfg this matter.