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Stanford study suggests dark matter is lighter and more elusive than previously thought

Accepted submission by Anonymous Coward at 2019-07-15 11:48:23 from the Gaaark fluid dept.
Science

From New Atlas [newatlas.com]

Although it makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe, dark matter is frustratingly hard to pin down. In order to figure out what it is, much of the search is about ruling out what dark matter isn't, and now physicists at Stanford and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have narrowed it down further. Using observations of galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, the team found [iop.org] that dark matter is likely lighter than previously thought – and interacts even less with normal matter.

For everything to fit together neatly, dark matter must have a lighter mass and must be "warmer" (i.e. moves a bit faster) than previously assumed. It also seems to interact even less often with regular matter – about a thousand times more weakly than the previous limit. That might explain why none of the many experiments designed to detect those interactions have registered any signals yet.


Original Submission