Earth's atmosphere may contain a missing part of the universe

There is plenty of astrophysical and cosmological evidence that suggests the existence of dark matter. From the inexplicable rotation curves of certain galaxies, to the growth of the largest structures in the universe. But attempts to explain these observations with alternative formulations have failed.

As a result, many astronomers believe that dark matter is an unknown form of matter that rarely interacts with light or normal matter. But now the argument is that Earth could swim through an ocean of dark matter and the waves within this invisible ocean could generate detectable radio waves that would allow us to understand this part of the universe.

Dark matter may be made of massive particles, but an interesting alternative is that dark matter is actually exceptionally light. Millions of times lighter than the lightest known particles. If so, dark matter would behave similarly to large waves, rather than appearing as individual spike-like balls.

Now, a recent study found in rare cases that when dark matter and normal matter interacted enough in models of ultralight dark matter, significant amounts of radio waves were produced.

This happened when dark matter encountered a plasma and when the frequency of the dark matter waves aligned with the frequency of the plasma waves. When this happened, a resonance occurred, which produced radiation in the form of radio waves.

This new research has led to a particularly interesting discovery: these waves can be detected in the ionosphere of our planet.

Earth's ionosphere is the thin, warm layer of the upper atmosphere and consists of a loose collection of charged particles – a plasma. It is naturally traversed by waves, and these waves can interact with the waves of hypothetical dark matter that could wash over Earth.

The researchers found that by using a radio antenna carefully tuned to search for a specific frequency of radio waves over the course of a year, they might be able to detect the radio waves produced by this interaction.

This is still a long way off and the research is highly theoretical, as it will take years to produce the perfect observation technique to discover these radio waves. But if it works, it would allow us to study one of the most mysterious and complex elements of our universe.

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