Recently, scientists failed to bring positive results for one of their missions. They didn’t find any X-ray glow hypothesized to be the product of the sterile neutrino. Dark matter is a massive old quest. Although scientists can’t detect it directly, they know it’s out there due to its gravitational effect on the stuff discovered.
They estimated that approximately 85 % of the matter in the Universe represents dark matter. But, because they can’t detect it, they don’t know very much about it. There are, however, several hypothetical candidates, such as the sterile neutrino, which scientists try so much to detect.
A Dark Matter Failed Quest
The sterile neutrino is recognized as a hypothetical particle. Normal neutrinos, on the other hand, represent almost all the particles in the Universe. They’re tough to spot at the best of times. The normal neutrinos resemble the electrons a lot. They don’t have, however, a charge, but a little mass instead. But a sterile neutrino, scientists have hypothesized, wouldn’t realize an interaction with regular matter at all, except, probably, gravitationally.
The sterile neutrinos represent a considerable challenge to scientists, but not an impossibility. They’re unstable, and they could decay into electromagnetic radiation and normal neutrinos. Such a thing might allow scientists to detect them even if they would be very faint. The first investigation started in 2014 but without any luck.
No Dark Matter in Our Galaxy’s Halo
A team of researchers realized a similar task investigation recently. They used a meta-analysis of two decades of raw archival X-ray details of space around our galaxy. That’s where other glowing objects wouldn’t interfere. They also used the XMM-Newton space telescope to spot any signs of 3/5 KeV emission. But, the results were disappointing.
“Our finding does not mean that the mark is not a sterile neutrino, but it means that – contrary to what was claimed in 2014 – there is no experimental evidence to-date that points towards its existence,” explained Ben Safdi, a physicist from the University of Michigan.
