Scientists are finally figuring out how much dark matter — the almost imperceptible material said to tug on everything, yet emit no light — really weighs.
The new estimate helps pin down how heavy its particles could be — with implications for what the mysterious stuff actually is.
The research sharply narrows the potential mass of dark matter particles, from between an estimated 10^minus 24 electronvolts (eV) and 10^19 Gigaelectron volts (GeV) , to between 10^minus 3 eV and 10^7eV — a possible range of masses many trillions of trillions of times smaller than before.
The findings could help dark matter hunters focus their efforts on the indicated range of particle masses — or they might reveal a previously unknown force is at work in the universe, said Xavier Calmet, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.