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    Scientists think dark matter might come in two forms

    April 17, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Dark Matter Might Come in Two Forms
    Dark matter might not be one particle, but two—and that could explain why only the Milky Way shows a mysterious gamma-ray signal. If the balance between these particles varies across galaxies, the universe may be hiding its clues in uneven ways. Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com

    Dark matter may come in two flavors—finally explaining why its signals appear in some galaxies but vanish in others. A mysterious glow of gamma rays at the center of the Milky Way has long hinted at dark matter, but the lack of similar signals in smaller dwarf galaxies has cast doubt on that idea. Now, researchers propose a bold twist: dark matter might not be a single particle at all, but a mix of two different types that must interact with each other to produce detectable signals.

    Sometimes, not seeing somet...

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    Dark matter, not a black hole, could power Milky Way’s heart

    February 7, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    'Dark matter, not a black hole, could power Milky Way's heart'
    Artistic representation of the Milky Way, where the innermost stars move at near relativistic speeds (defined as velocities that constitute a significant fraction of the speed of light, typically considered to be 10% or more) around a dense core of dark matter, with no black hole at the centre. At greater distances, the halo part of the same invisible dark matter distribution continues to shape the motions of stars in the outskirts of our galaxy, tracing the characteristic rotation curve. Credit: Valentina Crespi et al. License type Attribution (CC BY 4.0)

    Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its center but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence, astronomers say...

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    Scientists just mapped the hidden structure holding the universe together

    February 5, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Universe’s Hidden Structure Revealed
    This map shows the Dark Matter distribution in the COSMOS field observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (left) and by the James Webb Space Telescope (right). Dark Matter distribution in the COSMOS field. The overlaid contours mark regions of equal dark-matter density, highlighting where this invisible matter – shown here in a blue color ­– is most strongly concentrated. Credit: Dr. Gavin Leroy/Professor Richard Massey/COSMOS-Webb collaboration

    Scientists have produced the most detailed map ever created of dark matter that runs throughout the Universe, revealing how it has influenced the formation of stars, galaxies, and planets.

    The research, which includes astronomers from Durham University in the UK, provides new insight into how this unseen substance helped draw ordinary matt...

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    Milky Way is embedded in a ‘large-scale sheet’ of dark matter, which explains motions of nearby galaxies

    January 30, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Milky Way is embedded in a 'large-scale sheet' and this explains the motions of nearby galaxies
    Various projections of the posterior mean density of the constrained simulation ensemble, normalized by the cosmic mean density. Credit: Nature Astronomy (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-025-02770-w. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02770-w

    Computer simulations carried out by astronomers from the University of Groningen in collaboration with researchers from Germany, France and Sweden show that most of the (dark) matter beyond the Local Group of galaxies (which includes the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy) must be organized in an extended plane. Above and below this plane are large voids. The observed motions of nearby galaxies and the joint masses of the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy can only be properly explained with this “flat” mass distribution...

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