A newly discovered dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way appears to be radiating gamma rays—a sign that dark matter may be lurking at the galaxy’s center.
“Something in the direction of this dwarf galaxy is emitting gamma rays,” said Alex Geringer-Sameth, a postdoctoral research associate in the physics department at Carnegie Mellon University and lead author of the paper that has been submitted to Physical Review Letters.
“There’s no conventional reason this galaxy should be giving off gamma rays, so it’s potentially a signal for dark matter.”
Exciting, but Preliminary
The galaxy, named Reticulum 2, was identified recently in the data of the Dark Energy Survey, an experiment that maps the southern sky to understand the accelerated expansion of the universe. At approximately 98,000 light-years from Earth, Reticulum 2 is one of the nearest dwarf galaxies yet detected.
