Dark Matter Mysteries May be Solved by New Telescope Peering into 'Near Space'

A new telescope peering into "near space" may help unravel the mysteries of dark matter. Scientists hope to use the new telescope, which examines space within a few thousand light-years of Earth- to seek answers related to the field of high-energy astrophysics.

The researchers hope to rely on the instrument to track the trajectory of cosmic ray particles and measure their charge and energy. Known as the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET), the instrument is actually optimized for measuring electrons and gamma rays, which may contain the signature of dark matter or nearby sources of high-energy particle acceleration.

"The investigation is part of an international effort (involving Japan, Italy and USA) to understand the mechanisms of particle acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays in the galaxy, to identify their sources of acceleration, their elemental composition as a function of energy, and possibly to unveil the nature of dark matter," said Shoji Torii, one of the researchers, in a news release.

Dark matter makes up a quarter of the mass-energy of the universe. However, it still remains mysterious. If the new telescope can see a signature of dark matter, it could pave the way to a new understanding of the nature of dark matter.

"Seeing an appropriate signature in the electron spectrum and/or gamma rays would be extremely important since this would set the mass scale (weight) for the dark matter particles, which would in turn allow theorists to better determine new physics associated with the WIMP," said Torii. The latter would be [a] huge achievement since no individual sources have ever been positively identified. Such objects seem to be able to accelerate particles to energies far higher than we can achieve on Earth using the largest machines and we want to learn how nature does this, with possible applications here on Earth."

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