Overview
- The team led by Tomonori Totani analyzed 15 years of observations from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
- The reported emission forms a halo-like structure whose spatial profile and intensity align with expectations for the Milky Way’s dark matter distribution.
- The spectrum is interpreted as consistent with annihilating weakly interacting massive particles, implying a particle mass around 500 times that of a proton.
- The findings were published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, and the authors argue known astrophysical sources do not explain the signal.
- Experts urge caution and call for independent reanalyses and targeted checks, including searches for the same signature in dark‑matter–dominated dwarf galaxies.