[ESA] Three years since launch, ESA’s Euclid space telescope reveals the Milky Way galaxy’s centre in extraordinary detail: a mosaic of tens of millions of stars captured in just 26 […]
dark matter
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia Mission, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography
Very High Precision Astrometry for Exoplanets and Dark Matter with the Habitable Worlds Observatory
Astrometry, one of the oldest branches of astronomy, has been revolutionized by missions like Hipparcos and especially Gaia, which mapped billions of stars with extraordinary precision.
![The region in which dark matter impacts may leave detectable surface features on Ganymede. Gray regions correspond to existing constraints [33, 35, 37]. The light purple region is the region in which the dark matter has sufficient initial energy to penetrate through the 12 km conductive ice layer on Ganymede’s surface. The darker purple region corresponds to when the dark matter penetrates the entirety of Ganymede, leaving both an entrance and exit wound. Rough estimates for the approximate number of craters and crater radius from Eqs. 1 and 13 are provided on the top and right axes respectively, rounded to one significant figure for readability. -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Dark-Wounds-On-Icy-Moons.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Ganymede, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Status Report
Dark Wounds On Icy Moons: Ganymede’s Subsurface Ocean As A Dark Matter Detector
Dark matter in the form of macroscopic composites is largely unconstrained at masses of ∼1011−1017 g. In this mass range, dark matter may collide with planetary bodies, depositing an immense […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Status Report
Influence of Dark Matter on the Formation of Biogenic Elements in Early Universe Stars
We demonstrate that dark matter interactions can profoundly influence stellar nucleosynthesis in the early universe by altering thermodynamic gradients and modifying nuclear reaction rates within primordial stars.
![The parameter region of the AWDM. The correct baryon asymmetry can be obtained in the blue band. The region favored by the homochirality of the amino acids is represented by the red band. Here we use ξB = 0.1 − 10 while ξAA = 0.01 − 100. The gray (light gray) region is excluded by the observation relevant to the X-ray emission adopted from [39] (phase-space bound). The dotted line denotes the future reach by Athena [69]. -- hep-ph](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Asymmetric-Warm-Dark-Matter.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Status Report
Asymmetric Warm Dark Matter: From Cosmological Asymmetry to Chirality of Life
We investigate a novel scenario involving asymmetric keV-range dark matter (DM) in the form of right-handed (sterile) neutrinos.
Posted inBrown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report
Dark Kinetic Heating of Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
Dark kinetic heating of neutron stars has been previously studied as a promising dark matter detection avenue. Kinetic heating occurs when dark matter is sped up to relativistic speeds in […]
Posted inAstrobiology (general), Impact events, Press Release
Does Dark Matter Cause Mass Extinctions and Geologic Upheavals?
Research by New York University Biology Professor Michael Rampino concludes that Earth’s infrequent but predictable path around and through our Galaxy’s disc may have a direct and significant effect on […]