The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may have captured the elusive dark matter in the universe, as it has detected three potential candidates of “dark stars” that could be powered by annihilating dark matter particles, according to new peer-reviewed research.
Co-author Katherine Freese, director of the Weinberg Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Texas, Austin, described the discovery of a new type of star powered by dark matter as significant.
Dark matter, which is believed to make up the majority of the universe’s material, is invisible to conventional telescopes. Its presence can be inferred through gravitational effects, such as the magnification of light when a massive galaxy passes in front of a distant star.
Dark stars, if they exist, could be fueled by the particles of dark matter, much like “normal” matter powers stars like our sun. Scientists speculate that understanding dark stars could provide insights into the early universe and how it acquired light.
Researchers have hypothesized for 15 years that dark stars may have been among the first objects formed in the universe when it was just 700 million years old.
The observations made by the James Webb telescope indicate that the three distant objects, which existed in the early universe, meet the essential criteria for dark stars. These objects are luminous but too cool for fusion to occur, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While there are certain parameters that remain uncertain in the formation and evolution of dark stars, the researchers used plausible values for the energy of dark matter particles to create theoretical models of these objects.
The three candidates of dark stars, named JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0, and JADES-GS-z11-0, could be the focus of future observations by the James Webb telescope to search for specific light intensity patterns that align with other predictions for the energy of dark stars.
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