No, mysterious signals from space are not dark matter
If you have a choice between “known astrophysical objects” and “new physics,” bet on the known.
“Two recent studies by teams in the U.S. and the Netherlands have shown that the gamma-ray excess at the galactic center is speckled, not smooth as we would expect for a dark matter signal. Those results suggest the speckles may be due to point sources that we can’t see as individual sources…” -Eric Charles
Space is a strange place, and the variety of objects and phenomena in the Universe is always fertile ground for scientific investigation. Sometimes we find particles or energy signatures where we don’t expect them; sometimes the details differ from what our theories or models predict; sometimes a light signal appears where there’s no astrophysical source to account for it. In all of these cases, it’s a fantastic opportunity to learn something new about our Universe.
But while our imaginations — and this includes the imaginations of many scientists — might immediately run to novel phenomena like exotic particles, dark matter, or new physics, that should be a last resort. Instead, a new twist on how the existing laws and rules of physics apply to a novel scenario almost always holds the actual explanation. In particular, high-energy photons…
