July 31, 2012 | Rohan

I find dark matter tantalising and mysterious. Excitingly, astronomers may have spotted it in the heart of our own galaxy.

The Fermi Space Telescope has seen an excess of gamma rays. Some researchers think this excess comes from dark matter particles annihilating each other.

Cosmologists are confident that dark matter holds galaxies together, but don’t know what it’s made of. Heavy particles that don’t interact much with matter are one possibility. Some models show these can annihilate each other and give off gamma rays like those being observed.