For the first time in nearly a century of searching, astronomers may have detected a direct signal from dark matter, the most mysterious substance in the Universe. A team led by Tomonori Totani of the University of Tokyo, using data from NASA’s Fermi gamma ray space telescope, has discovered excess gamma ray emission with an energy of about 20 GeV in the center of the Milky Way — and it matches the predicted shape of a dark matter halo.

Why we have never seen dark matter until now

Dark matter was proposed in 1933 by Fritz Zwicky, and in the 1970s Vera Rubin convinced the scientific community of its existence by showing that the outer parts of spiral galaxies rotate far too quickly for their visible mass. Since then, it has been believed that dark matter makes up 85 percent of all matter in the Universe, while ordinary atoms account for only 15 percent. The problem is that dark matter interacts very weakly with electromagnetic radiation. It does not shine, absorb, or reflect light. The only way to “see” it is through its gravitational influence.

How it is possible to see something invisible

The only chance to detect dark matter directly is if its particles can annihilate each other. When two dark matter particles meet, they can destroy one another, producing a cascade of ordinary particles, including high energy gamma rays. The most popular candidate for such a particle is the WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle), which has a mass roughly five hundred times that of a proton.

This is exactly the type of signal Totani’s group searched for in the center of the Milky Way, where the density of dark matter should be highest.

What exactly was found

“We detected gamma rays with photon energies of 20 gigaelectronvolts (20 billion electronvolts) forming a structure resembling a halo in the direction of the center of the Milky Way,” said Tomonori Totani.

The shape of this halo almost perfectly matches the predicted model of dark matter distribution. The energy spectrum of the gamma rays also matches theoretical calculations for WIMP annihilation. The authors note that no other known astronomical sources capable of producing such a signal have been found.

“If this is confirmed, this will be the first time, as far as I know, that humanity has actually ‘seen’ dark matter. And it will mean that dark matter is a new particle outside the current Standard Model of particle physics. This would be a major breakthrough in astronomy and physics,” Totani said.

Why this is not yet one hundred percent proof

The scientific community requires further confirmation. The signal may be the result of unknown astrophysical processes (for example, unstudied pulsars or intermediate mass black holes). A final verdict will come only after additional Fermi data and perhaps observations from future missions such as China’s DAMPE or Europe’s e-ASTROGAM.

The study was published on November 25, 2025, in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

In short

A team from the University of Tokyo using Fermi telescope data has detected 20 GeV gamma radiation that closely matches the shape of a dark matter halo at the center of the Milky Way and corresponds to the expected energy of WIMP annihilation. If confirmed, this will be the first direct observation of dark matter in almost one hundred years of searching and will prove the existence of a new particle beyond the Standard Model. Scientists remain cautious — more data are needed, but a breakthrough is near.