* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Monday, July 28, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    League City seeking proposals for 53-acre entertainment district on sportsplex land – galvnews.com

    League City Invites Proposals to Transform 53-Acre Sportsplex into Vibrant Entertainment District

    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

    AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 1:51 p.m. EDT – Channel 3000

    Entertainment Highlights: Key Updates You Can’t Miss

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    AI’s race in the dark with China – Axios

    The High-Stakes AI Race: Innovation and Competition in the Shadows

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Behind the Screens: The Impact of Technology on Real Estate – TRREB

    Behind the Screens: How Technology is Transforming the Future of Real Estate

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    League City seeking proposals for 53-acre entertainment district on sportsplex land – galvnews.com

    League City Invites Proposals to Transform 53-Acre Sportsplex into Vibrant Entertainment District

    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

    AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 1:51 p.m. EDT – Channel 3000

    Entertainment Highlights: Key Updates You Can’t Miss

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    AI’s race in the dark with China – Axios

    The High-Stakes AI Race: Innovation and Competition in the Shadows

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Behind the Screens: The Impact of Technology on Real Estate – TRREB

    Behind the Screens: How Technology is Transforming the Future of Real Estate

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Colliding neutron stars hint at new physics that could explain dark matter

March 15, 2024
in Science
Colliding neutron stars hint at new physics that could explain dark matter
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

An illustration of two ice-blue orbs smashing together, surrounded by warm reddish dust and gas.

An illustration of two neutron stars colliding and merging to create a kilonova blast that new research indicates may be a perfect sphere.
(Image credit: Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science)

The collision of two neutron stars around 130 million light-years from Earth, and the unique physics this merger created, may have shed new light on dark matter.

New research conducted by Washington University physicist Bhupal Dev suggests the neutron star merger, detected here on Earth as the gravitational wave signal GW170817, could help place constraints on hypothetical particles called “axions,” one of the leading candidates for dark matter.

Axions have never been directly detected, but they appear in many models that extend physics beyond the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, which is our current best description of subatomic particles and how they interact with each other.

Related: What happens when neutron stars collide? Astronomers may finally know

Dark matter is such a challenge for scientists because it doesn’t interact with light, which means it is effectively invisible to our eyes. Dark matter also exhibits an apparent lack of interaction with other forces like the electromagnetic force. Overall, because of these strange features, dark matter can’t be made up of electrons, protons and neutrons, the ingredients of normal matter that comprise stars, planets, our bodies and everything around us on a day-to-day basis. 

This mystery is further compounded by the fact that the everyday stuff we are aware of and which is contained in the Standard Model accounts for just 15% of the total matter in the universe.

“We have good reason to suspect that new physics beyond the standard model might be lurking just around the corner,” Dev said in a statement. “Extreme astrophysical environments, like neutron star mergers, provide a new window of opportunity in our quest for dark sector particles like axions, which might hold the key to understanding the missing 85% of all the matter in the universe.”

Are axions hiding neutron star wreckage?

Neutron stars are born when massive stars exhaust their fuel supplies necessary for internal nuclear fusion and can no longer support themselves against the inward push of their own gravity. As this cosmic balancing act that has existed for millions of years ends, a star’s outer layers are thrown away in a massive supernova explosion.

This leaves behind a collapsed stellar core with the mass of the sun crammed into a width of around 12 miles (20 kilometers). That’s a neutron star, named as such because it’s filled with neutron-rich matter. Neutron stars are so dense that if a teaspoon of it were scooped up and brought to Earth, it would weigh around 10 million tons. That’s about 30 times as heavy as the Empire State Building.

These neutron stars don’t always exist in isolation; sometimes, they swirl around a fellow neutron star companion. As these neutron stars orbit around each other in such a so-called neutron star binary, they create ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. As these spacetime ripples radiate outward, they carry angular momentum away from the binary, causing its constituent stellar remnants to draw tighter together. This continues until the neutron stars’ gravity takes over and causes them to slam together and merge.

Unsurprisingly, given the extreme nature of neutron stars, a collision between two such stellar remnants spurs tumultuous types of physics that aren’t seen anywhere else in the universe. In fact, scientists already think neutron star mergers are the only environments violent enough to forge elements heavier than iron, like gold and silver, that even the boiling hearts of massive stars can’t create. 

This is possible because neutron star collisions spray out matter rich in free neutrons, particles usually only found locked up in atomic nuclei alongside protons.

These neutrons can thus be swallowed by atomic nuclei in the region, a phenomenon called the “rapid-capture process” or “r-process.” This results in the creation of unstable, massive atomic nuclei that eventually decay to create lighter elements like gold. This decay also produces light that astronomers see as a kilonova from our vantage point here on Earth.

The merger also forms a short-lived, dense remnant of the two neutron stars that quickly collapses to birth a black hole. 

“The remnant gets much hotter than the individual stars for about a second before settling down into a bigger neutron star or a black hole, depending on the initial masses,” Dev explained. Dev thinks this means the remnant is the ideal production point for exotic particles like axions.

An illustration of the Fermi space telescope above Earth, detecting gamma rays from a neutron star merger.

An illustration of the Fermi space telescope detecting gamma rays (γ) directly from neutron star mergers and from the decay of exotic particles they create. (Image credit: P. S. Bhupal Dev, et al, 2024)

These particles could escape the site of the neutron star merger and decay into other particles, including photons, which are particles of light. Dev and colleagues think the decay of these fugitive particles gives rise to a unique electromagnetic signal that could be picked up by gamma-ray telescopes, such as NASA’s Fermi space telescope.

The team thinks this means Fermi and future gamma-ray detecting instruments could focus on neutron star collisions to collect data that can improve scientists’ understanding of axions and similar particles. 

This could eventually lead to the discovery of the particles that comprise dark matter, solving one of the most pressing questions in cosmology: What is the universe’s “missing matter” made of?

The team’s research was published on March 5 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Space.com – https://www.space.com/neutron-stars-collision-dark-matter-standard-model

Tags: Collidingneutronscience
Previous Post

Are Bose noise cancelling headphones worth the money? Now is a good time to find out

Next Post

‘The New World on Mars’ offers a Red Planet settlement guide (exclusive)

Coral reef ecology and restoration – Nature

Reviving Underwater Wonders: Exploring Coral Reef Ecology and Restoration

July 28, 2025
This summer has seen the shortest days in Earth’s recorded history – National Geographic

This Summer Brings the Shortest Days Ever Recorded on Earth

July 28, 2025
Open Science Trainings – NASA Science (.gov)

Unlock the Future of Discovery with NASA’s Open Science Trainings

July 28, 2025
Top doctor reveals the surprising lifestyle factor that has a huge impact on our immunity – it’s not food or drink – Daily Mail

Top Doctor Uncovers Unexpected Lifestyle Habit That Dramatically Boosts Your Immunity

July 28, 2025
Matcha: World’s thirst for the tea swallows global supplies – BBC

Matcha: World’s thirst for the tea swallows global supplies – BBC

July 28, 2025
IMF warns against Egypt’s military dominance over economy – Middle East Eye

IMF Sounds Alarm on Egypt’s Military Grip Over Economy

July 28, 2025
League City seeking proposals for 53-acre entertainment district on sportsplex land – galvnews.com

League City Invites Proposals to Transform 53-Acre Sportsplex into Vibrant Entertainment District

July 28, 2025
How Might Federal Medicaid Cuts in the Enacted Reconciliation Package Affect Rural Areas? – KFF

What Do Federal Medicaid Cuts in the New Reconciliation Package Mean for Rural Communities?

July 28, 2025
US military kills ISIS leader in Syria – CNN

US Military Strikes Down ISIS Leader in Syria, Dealing a Crushing Blow to Terror Network

July 28, 2025
AI’s race in the dark with China – Axios

The High-Stakes AI Race: Innovation and Competition in the Shadows

July 27, 2025

Categories

Archives

July 2025
MTWTFSS
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031 
« Jun    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (742)
  • Economy (766)
  • Entertainment (21,646)
  • General (16,144)
  • Health (9,803)
  • Lifestyle (774)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (768)
  • Politics (775)
  • Science (15,980)
  • Sports (21,263)
  • Technology (15,747)
  • World (749)

Recent News

Coral reef ecology and restoration – Nature

Reviving Underwater Wonders: Exploring Coral Reef Ecology and Restoration

July 28, 2025
This summer has seen the shortest days in Earth’s recorded history – National Geographic

This Summer Brings the Shortest Days Ever Recorded on Earth

July 28, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version