The universe may be chock full of dark matter, but it has proven near impossible to detect, though astronomers believe they have picked up a signal.
According to Space.com, a team of astronomers noticed an irregularity in X-ray emissions from the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft. They did not recognize the signal and hypothesized that it could be evidence of dark matter.
The study will be published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
"The signal's distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter, that is, concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges," Oleg Ruchayskiy, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in a press release. "It could usher in a new era in astronomy."
Dark matter gets its name for giving off no light nor taking any in. Though it has never been directly observed, astronomers have seen it interact with the matter they see every day.
"With the goal of verifying our findings, we then looked at data from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and made the same observations," Alexey Boyarsky, also a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in the release.
Astronomers believe 80 percent of the universe is made up of "dark" matter that is not visible, but shows itself through gravitational force. Astronomers have only guessed at the kinds of particles that make up dark matter, but they have never been able to find out for sure.
"Confirmation of this discovery may lead to construction of new telescopes specially designed for studying the signals from dark matter particles," Boyarsky said. "We will know where to look in order to trace dark structures in space and will be able to reconstruct how the Universe has formed."
