Mysterious dark matter 'axion' detected in X-ray sky

A new space study detected mysterious dark matter-'axions' in the X-Ray sky.

As first author, Late Professor George Fraser from the University of Leicester had said that the dark matter was a kind of invisible mass of unknown origin that cannot be seen directly with telescopes, but was instead inferred from its gravitational effects on ordinary matter and on light.

Scientists also said that the dark matter was believed to make up 85% of the matter of the universe.

The results of the study were found through an extensive study of almost the entire archive of data from the European Space Agency's X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, which will be celebrating its 15th year in orbit this December.

In his paper, Professor Fraser also said that, 'axions' were dark matter particle candidates that were indeed produced in the core of the Sun and converted to X-rays in the magnetic field of the Earth

The direct detection of dark matter had preoccupied physics for over thirty years and these findings could have huge implications, not only for our understanding of the true X-ray sky, but also for identifying the dark matter that dominates the mass content of the cosmos.

The findings were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.