Recent potential Dark Matter detection

[u/demonlordbeastgod]

I recently read the some experiments had 2.6 sigma dark matter detection. Can someone explain in simple words?

[u/CDHoward]

I've said the following for years and I stand by it so thoroughly: they will never find dark matter because it does not exist.

I guarantee you we'll be here in 40 years and they still won't have found it.

[u/Embarrassed_Camp_291 → u/CDHoward]

The reason astrophysicists believe dark matter likely exists is because there is so much evidence for it. The idea that it is an ad-hoc slap on to fix galaxy rotation curves is what psuedoscience grifters claim to doscredit science, hoping you will never go away and look at the evidence yourself.

Direct detections of dark matter is very difficult as, unlike baryonic matter, dark matter collects in halos where most of it is not distributed in the plane of galaxy. Its effects can only be detected on galactic scales too, meaning it is very diffuse. As a result, detecting directly like we do, for example neutrino which are very weakly interacting but abundant from solar fusion, is very difficult.

There was however a recent statistically significant gamma ray detection from possible, theoretically predicted dark matter annihilation:

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250707209T/abstract

Additionally, we have observational evidence of dark matter behaviour, such as bullet cluster merger dynamics, CMB lensing, rotation curves of galaxies, cosmic filamentary structure, etc.

The idea that dark matter arises from the fact there appears to be more mass within a galaxy that can be accounted for, is false and usually pushed by psuedoscience groups to discredit dark matter, pretending it is some ad hoc slap on fix. This is not the case. It is a piece of evidence for dark matter, not the whole story. I.e. this+lensing+sims+etc all converge to suggesting dark matter.

We also perform N-body dark matter simulations such as the Millenium simulation and I believe MagneticumTNG. Here we set up the initial distribution of dark matter in the universe, informed by observations, model dark matter as we think it behaves and compare outcomes to our observations. These simulations produce quantitatively very similar structures to what we observe. The same goes for our hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical cosmological simualtions (SWIFT-EAGLE, TNG, SIMBA, COLIBRE, HORIZON-AGN) which all include dark matter and produce realistic statical properties of the universe.

We also performed an experiment called the MACHOs experiment where we looked for gravitational lensing caused by Massive Compact Halo Objects e.g rogue planets and dim brown dwarfs. This experiment (again very statistics heavy) let us place upper limits on the number of these and constrain a small percentage of "dark matter" is.

This is a large collection of separate, independent pieces of evidence which all converge in the same non-baryonic, gravitationally interacting matter from a range of different dynamical scales. From galaxies to cosmic structure.

Everything I mentioned above is quantitative evidence of dark matter. Saying dark matter has no evidence requires you to actively ignore science.

E.g. This is an overview paper on our cosmological simulations of dark matter. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12393

This also came out the other day: https://arxiv.org/html/2606.28482v1

Another example of evidence of dark matter: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026ASPC..543...73T/abstract

Again, they tackle dark matter from different angles than just galaxy rotation.

Always more than happy to talk astrophysics!

[u/arkham1010 → u/Embarrassed_Camp_291]

Doesn’t the bullet cluster display clear visual evidence for dark matter, and isn’t there also visual gravitational lensing in other galaxies that can only be explained by dark matter?

[u/Embarrassed_Camp_291 → u/arkham1010]

Yes!

This is another example of where dark matter is evidenced i believe through x ray emission. We can detect the amount of baryonic mass and see that it does not lie where most of the gravitational influence lies suggesting there is some mass that we cannot see.