What is the mystery of the hidden radiation emanating from the center of our galaxy?

Published on 10/22/2025 | Last updated: 17:37 (Mecca Time)

For over a decade, scientists have been preoccupied with a strange phenomenon in the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way: a faint glow of gamma rays that does not appear to be emanating from any known source, whether stars, gases, or even black holes.

It should be noted that gamma rays represent the highest energy levels in the electromagnetic spectrum, a type of light, but different from visible light or radio waves; it is simply “invisible light” with high energy.

Now, a new study published in the journal “Physical Review Letters” suggests that a team from Johns Hopkins University in the United States may be on the verge of solving this mystery, or at least narrowing it down. The team suggests that this light may be the result of collisions of dark matter particles, or because of ultra-fast neutron stars known as “millisecond pulsars.”

Dark matter makes up about 85% of the mass of the universe, while the rest consists of what we know of stars, galaxies, and planets, in addition to the inhabitants of these planets, humans and other living organisms.

Dark matter cannot be observed directly, hence the name “dark,” but scientists can observe its effect on galaxy clusters, which appear heavier than they should in astronomical observations.

Scientists hypothesize that dark matter is composed of particles that may sometimes collide and produce energy in the form of gamma rays.

Using advanced computer models, scientists simulated the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy over billions of years to determine where dark matter is supposed to accumulate. The results showed that the pattern produced by the simulation matches the glow observed by gamma-ray telescopes at the center of the galaxy.

But this is not the only explanation, there is another possibility that ultra-fast neutron stars, which are very dense stellar remnants that emit strong radiation as they rotate, may be the cause.

This hypothesis assumes that if these stars exist in large numbers at the center of the galaxy, they could explain the mysterious glow emanating from the heart of the Milky Way.

However, an official statement issued by Johns Hopkins University indicates that the number of neutron stars required to explain the glow exceeds what has actually been observed, making this possibility less likely, but it still exists.

The researchers hope that the Cherenkov Telescope Array, which will become fully operational in the coming years, will help them distinguish between the “dark matter glow” and “neutron star pulses.”

The Cherenkov Telescope Array is the world’s largest astronomical project dedicated to studying the universe using high-energy gamma rays, and it represents the next generation of ground-based space observatories in this field.

The project is named after the Russian scientist Pavel Cherenkov, the discoverer of the Cherenkov radiation phenomenon, which is the blue light that appears when charged particles move faster than the speed of light in a material medium (not in a vacuum).

The project consists of two main stations distributed on both sides of the globe to cover the entire sky, the first is located on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands (Spain), and the second in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, which is among the clearest regions on Earth.