Pulsars, not dark matter, explain the Milky Way’s antimatter
An enormous amount of antimatter is coming from our galactic center. But the culprit probably isn’t dark matter, but merely neutron stars.
When you look out at the Universe, what you see is only a tiny portion of what’s actually out there. If you were to examine the Universe solely with what’s perceptible to your eyes, you’d miss out on a whole slew of information that exists in wavelengths of light that are invisible to us. From the highest-energy gamma rays to the lowest-energy radio waves, the electromagnetic spectrum is enormous, with visible light representing just a tiny sliver of what’s out there. At shorter wavelengths and higher energies, gamma rays, X-rays, and ultraviolet light are all present, while at longer wavelengths and lower energies, infrared, microwave, and radio light encodes a wide variety of information about what various astrophysical sources are doing.
However, there’s an entirely different method to measure the Universe: to collect actual particles and antiparticles, a science known as cosmic ray astronomy. For more than a decade, astronomers have seen a signal of cosmic ray positrons — the antimatter counterpart of the electron — that they’ve struggled to explain. Could it be humanity’s best clue…
