New space telescope may help crack the secrets of dark matter

A Chinese space telescope has found a strange peak in high-energy cosmic ray electrons and positrons, which are highly energetic particles blazing across the universe at close to the speed of light. Scientists say they think such an anomaly can help crack the secrets of dark matter, the strangest ingredient in the universe.

The strange peak was picked up by the Dark Matter Particle Explorer, nicknamed Wukong, at around 1.4 trillion electronvolts, when the flux of cosmic ray electrons and positrons suddenly rose before collapsing.

"This phenomena is unexpected because no other stellar events behave like this at such high energy," said Fan Yizhong, deputy chief designer of Wukong's scientific application system.