Scientists may be one step closer to unlocking one of the great mysteries of the universe after calculating that neutron stars might hold a key to helping us understand elusive dark matter.
In a paper published last month in The Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, physicists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, led by the University of Melbourne, calculated that energy transferred when dark matter particles collide and annihilate inside cold dead neutron stars can heat the stars up very quickly.
It was previously thought that this energy transfer could take a very long time as the energy of the dark matter particles becomes smaller and smaller, they are less and less likely to interact again, in some cases, longer than the age of the universe itself, rendering this heating irrelevant. However, Professor Nicole Bell of the University of Melbourne said the new calculations show for the first time that most of the energy would be deposited in just a few days.