Scientists concluded that a gamma-ray radiation from the Milky Way most likely comes from pulsars. The conclusion casts a doubt on the previous assumption that the gamma-rays were radiated from dark matter.
The international team of scientists who worked together with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory of the Department of Energy has found the origin of mysterious gamma-rays radiation from the center of Milky Way. Their findings show that the gamma-ray most likely caused by pulsars, instead of dark matter.
Pulsar is the incredibly dense, rapidly spinning cores of the collapsed ancient stars. A pulsar is much more massive than the sun, up to 30 times, according to the press release from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at the University of Stanford on May 2. Pulsars are believed to be the source of the gamma-rays radiation from the center of Milky Way.
The analysis was led by Mattia Di Mauro from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC). Along with the international team of scientists, Di Mauro analyzed the gamma-rays radiation from the center of Milky Way with the NASA Large Area Telescope at the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Recent analysis from the source of the radiation pointed to the large population of pulsars in the Milky Way.
“Our study shows that we don’t need dark matter to understand the gamma-rays emissions of our galaxy,” Di Mauro said about the gamma-rays radiation. "We have identified a population of pulsars in the region around the galactic center, which sheds new light on the formation history of the Milky Way."
The team has published their finding in the Astrophysical Journal. This finding has also cast the doubt on the previous assumption about dark matter as the source of gamma-rays radiation, as the pulsars are the ones that emit gamma-rays radiation. Watch the NASA Goddard explanation regarding the gamma-rays radiation in space below: