Roman Space Telescope will use a century-old idea from Einstein to probe the nature of mysterious dark matter
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
When NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope begins science operations in 2027, it will use a space-bending effect first predicted by Einstein back in 1916 in an attempt to crack one of science's greatest mysteries: the nature of dark matter.
The phenomenon in question is that of "gravitational lensing." The great physicist's magnum opus theory of gravity, general relativity, proposes that this occurs when objects of great mass warp the very fabric of space-time (the four-dimensional unification of space and time), and light from background sources is curved as it passes these "dents" in the cosmos.
A new study suggests that the images created by Roman as it performs its huge cosmic surveys could contain around 160,000 gravitational lenses. The research team estimates that around 500 of these could be ideal for investigating dark matter, the universe's most mysterious "stuff."
"Ultimately, the question we're trying to address is: What particle or particles constitute dark matter?" research team principal investigator Tansu Daylan, a faculty fellow at the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement.
"While some properties of dark matter are known, we essentially have no idea what makes up dark matter," Daylan added. "Roman will help us to distinguish how dark matter is distributed on small scales and, hence, its particle nature."
Dark matter represents such a big puzzle for scientists because, despite the fact it makes up around 85% of the matter in the universe, they have little idea what it actually is. The crux of the problem is the fact that dark matter doesn't interact with light (more formally, electromagnetic radiation).
This not only means dark matter is effectively invisible, but also that it can't be composed of particles like electrons, protons, and neutrons that make up the atoms that compose everyday matter like stars, planets, moons, and the cat next door. Those do interact with light; that's why you can see said cat defiling your herb garden again. (Why always my basil, Tatty? WHY?)
The lack of interaction with electromagnetic radiation, one of the universe's four fundamental forces, has led scientists to search beyond the standard model of particle physics to hunt for new particles that could account for dark matter.
You might be wondering how dark matter can curve light if it doesn't interact with light. The answer is that it uses a middle man, another of the universe's four fundamental forces: gravity. General relativity states that all bodies with mass curve space-time to some extent. Light is then forced to follow this curve. Thus, dark matter can play a role in gravitational lensing.
Gravitational lensing happens when light from a background source passes an object of great mass, like a galaxy. This light is curved, but how extreme this curvature is depends on how close to that body of mass the light passes.
That means that light from the same source can take paths of different lengths around a gravitational lens, thus arriving at the same telescope at different times.
There are a few possible results of this lensing effect. The background source could be greatly magnified, an effect that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is using to spot early galaxies, or can even appear at multiple places in the same image, often forming stunning arrangements like Einstein rings and crosses.
But the gravitational lensing effect can also reveal details about the lens itself. If that lens is a galaxy, it can show the distribution of that galaxy's "invisible" dark matter.
"This effect produces multiple images of the background galaxy that are magnified and distorted differently," Daylan said.
These "duplicate images" allow scientists to make multiple measurements of how the lensing galaxy's mass is distributed, resulting in a far more precise measurement.
Each image Roman that generates will be around 200 times larger than those produced by the Hubble Space Telescope, and that is how this exciting new space telescope will deliver a wealth of new gravitational lenses.
But there is more to Roman's gravitational lens hunting than quantity; the new study shows that it will be about the quality of these new Roman-delivered lenses, too.
"Roman will not only significantly increase our sample size [of gravitational lenses] — its sharp, high-resolution images will also allow us to discover gravitational lenses that appear smaller on the sky," said Daylan. "Ultimately, both the alignment and the brightness of the background galaxies need to meet a certain threshold so we can characterize the dark matter within the foreground galaxies."
Roman's Wide Field Instrument, A 300-megapixel camera, will allow researchers to gauge the bending of the background galaxies' light with such precision that it is akin to measuring the diameter of a human hair from the distance of more than two and a half American football fields or soccer pitches.
Because smaller clumps of dark matter cause less extreme warping, this sensitivity will allow researchers to detect and characterize smaller, less massive dark matter structures. Roman could therefore help spot the sort of dark matter "clumps" that scientists propose came together in the early universe to build galaxies.
"Finding gravitational lenses and being able to detect clumps of dark matter in them is a game of tiny odds. With Roman, we can cast a wide net and expect to get lucky often," study team leader Bryce Wedig, also of Washington University in St. Louis, said in the same statement. "With Roman, we can cast a wide net and expect to get lucky often. We won't see dark matter in the images — it's invisible — but we can measure its effects."
Related Stories:
— Something 'fishy' is happening with the Milky Way's dark matter halo
— How the Large Hadron Collider's successor will hunt for the dark universe
— Dark matter might live in a dense haze around stellar corpses
"We will push the limits of what we can observe, and use every gravitational lens we detect with Roman to pin down the particle nature of dark matter," Daylan concluded.
The team's research was published on June 5 in The Astrophysical Journal.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The new Ozempic? Weight-loss pill Amycretin could be more effective than jabs
A new weight-loss treatment that can be administered as either a weekly injection or a daily pill has shown promising results in early-stage trials, according to a new study. In one of the trials, 125 adults were assigned to weekly injections of amycretin. Those receiving the 60 milligram dose lost nearly a quarter of their body weight over 36 weeks. This would make amycretin a more effective than other weight loss drugs like Wegovy, where a trial found that patients lost 15 per cent of their body weight over a longer 68 week period. Another trial enrolled 144 adults to test the pill version of amycretin. Those who took the 100 milligram daily tablet lost an average of 13.1 percent of their weight over 12 weeks. While jabs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro only target the body's GLP-1 receptors, amycretin targets them as well as the amylin receptors, which help regulate blood glucose levels and appetite. The drug helps to prevent overeating and promote feelings of satiety. The findings were published in The Lancet and presented this week at the American Diabetes Association's Scientific Sessions in Chicago. Researchers also reported that the drug appeared to improve participants' blood sugar control, an important marker for those at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company behind amycretin — and also the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic — hopes the pill version of amycretin could make weight-loss therapy more accessible, especially in Britain, where around 1.5 million people currently receive weight-loss treatments, mostly as injections prescribed through specialised clinics or by private providers. Pill formulations may simplify prescribing and make long-term weight-loss support easier to scale up. Unlike drugs like Ozempic, amycretin tablets would not need to be refrigerated and do not require syringes. However, amycretin remains in the early stages of clinical testing and that larger trials will be required to fully establish its safety and efficacy. Both forms of the drug were also associated with improvements in blood sugar levels. Patients did report side effects, including nausea and vomiting, but researchers said that they tended to resolve as the treatment progressed.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
DARPA smashes wireless power record, beaming energy more than 5 miles away — and uses it to make popcorn
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The U.S. military has set a new record for wireless power transmission, beaming a laser carrying more than 800 watts of power across a distance of 5.3 miles (8.6 kilometers). The test, performed by the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of its Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program, is a key step toward unlocking the near-instant beaming of power. It also smashes previous records set by the POWER program, which previously beamed 230 watts across 1 mile (1.7 km) for 25 seconds, and a smaller, undisclosed amount of power as far as 2.3 miles (3.7 km). "It is beyond a doubt that we absolutely obliterated all previously reported optical power beaming demonstrations for power and distance," Paul Jaffe, the POWER program manager, said in a statement. The concept of wireless power transmission (WPT) has been a popular goal since the days of Nikola Tesla, who in 1901 began constructing the Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island, New York — a 187-foot (57 meters) structure intended to be the first node in a "World Wireless System" that would beam power around the globe. Yet technical challenges meant that funding for the project, initially provided by the financier J.P. Morgan, dried up, leaving Tesla's vision unrealized. Related: NASA's 1st successful 2-way laser experiment is a giant leap for moon and Mars communications Nonetheless, interest in the concept has recently increased, both for military applications and space-based solar power, a nascent technology that would collect and transmit energy from sunlight in space, where it is 10 times more intense than at Earth's surface. Energy is essential for military operations, and getting that energy to the battlefields and disaster areas where it's needed is slow, risky, and resource intensive, often using up a lot of fuel, DARPA representatives wrote in the statement. RELATED STORIES —World's most powerful X-ray laser set for massive upgrade that will help us better understand the atomic world —DARPA's military-grade 'quantum laser' will use entangled photons to outshine conventional laser beams—Scientists uncover the secret to building Star Wars-style laser weapons — but don't worry, we won't have a Death Star anytime soon "These tests, referred to as PRAD (POWER Receiver Array Demo), mark an important step toward the POWER program's long-term goal of being able to instantly beam power from a location where it can be easily generated to wherever it's needed," the agency added. In the latest experiment, conducted at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the power was beamed over the 5.3-mile distance in a 30-second pulse. The laser beam arrived at the receiver before passing through a small aperture, bouncing off a parabolic mirror onto solar cells within. The pulse was transmitted with an approximate 20% efficiency, and some of the power it transmitted was used to make popcorn. The researchers have bigger ambitions for the system's use in the field, however, suggesting that it could be used to power unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They will now move on to testing power beaming both across multiple connected relays and vertically, where the atmosphere is thinner and transmission more efficient.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Perspective Therapeutics Commences Recruitment for [212Pb]VMT-α-NET in the Third Dose Escalation Cohort of its Ongoing Phase 1/2a Clinical Trial
[212Pb]VMT-α-NET Phase 1/2a study is advancing into Cohort 3 with a fixed administered dose that is up to 20% higher (6 mCi) than the dose administered to patients in Cohort 2 Dosimetry sub-study analysis presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) 2025 Annual Meeting to advance utility of dosimetry in clinical development when considered with clinical data On track to submit further clinical updates to scientific congresses in 2H 2025, including longer safety follow-up on all patients who have received at least one treatment of [212Pb]VMT-α-NET and anti-tumor activities in patients dosed to date who have had the opportunity to receive at least one scan after their full treatment SEATTLE, June 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Perspective Therapeutics, Inc. ("Perspective" or the "Company") (NYSE AMERICAN: CATX), a radiopharmaceutical company pioneering advanced treatments for cancers throughout the body, today announced that alignment was reached with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to open the third dosing cohort (Cohort 3) of its ongoing Phase 1/2a clinical trial for [212Pb]VMT-α-NET in patients with unresectable or metastatic somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2)-positive neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) who have not received prior radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPT). "We are excited to start exploring a higher dose level of VMT-α-NET after successfully completing an interaction with the FDA that was agreed prior to commencement of this trial," commented Markus Puhlmann, Chief Medical Officer of Perspective. "We are encouraged by the overall clinical profile observed at the second dose level of VMT-α-NET—including evidence of anti-tumor activity and primarily low-grade adverse events—and we believe it is important to assess whether a higher dose could further improve the therapeutic profile. Meanwhile, we remain committed to engaging with the FDA to evaluate the clinical utility of dosimetry estimates and analyses in the development of our proprietary RPTs." Patients in Cohort 3 will receive up to four fixed administered doses of [212Pb]VMT-α-NET at 6 mCi every eight weeks if they weigh more than 60kg (133lb), or 100μCi/kg of body weight if they weigh less than or equal to 60kg. Observations of dose limiting toxicities (DLTs) in up to eight patients within 42 days of the first treatment cycle will be used to assess whether this cohort of patients have received maximum tolerated dose (MTD) or maximum feasible dose (MFD). Once a safety monitoring committee (SMC) has reviewed the data from these initial patients, it may recommend exploring alternative dosing and/or recruit more patients into Cohort 3. Perspective is notifying sites that Cohort 3 is now open for recruitment. Patients currently being evaluated for entry into the study will enroll into Cohort 3 if they qualify. Pending feedback from sites on operationalizing enrollment into Cohort 3, an update on pace of recruitment will be provided in due course. About [212Pb]VMT-α-NETPerspective designed [212Pb]VMT-α-NET to target and deliver 212Pb to tumor sites expressing SSTR2. The Company is conducting a multi-center, open-label, dose-escalation, dose-expansion study ( identifier NCT05636618) of [212Pb]VMT-α-NET in patients with unresectable or metastatic SSTR2-positive neuroendocrine tumors who have not received a prior RPT. Interim update with a data cut-off date of April 30, 2025 were reported in an oral presentation at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in May 2025. Cohort 2 was reopened in August 2024. During 2H 2025, some of the 33 additional patients enrolled after the cohort reopened and through April 30, 2025 will have had the opportunity for at least 32 weeks of follow-up after their initial doses, sufficient time to receive at least one scan after their full treatment (up to four doses every eight weeks), if they receive all four doses of treatment per protocol. About Perspective Therapeutics, Therapeutics, Inc. is a radiopharmaceutical company pioneering advanced treatments for cancers throughout the body. The Company has proprietary technology that utilizes the alpha-emitting isotope 212Pb to deliver powerful radiation specifically to cancer cells via specialized targeting moieties. The Company is also developing complementary imaging diagnostics that incorporate the same targeting moieties, which provides the opportunity to personalize treatment and optimize patient outcomes. This "theranostic" approach enables the ability to see the specific tumor and then treat it to potentially improve efficacy and minimize toxicity. The Company's melanoma (VMT01), neuroendocrine tumor (VMT-α-NET), and solid tumor (PSV359) programs are in Phase 1/2a imaging and therapy trials in the U.S. The Company is growing its regional network of drug product finishing facilities, enabled by its proprietary 212Pb generator, to deliver patient-ready products for clinical trials and commercial operations. For more information, please visit the Company's website at Safe Harbor StatementThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements in this press release include statements concerning, among other things, the Company's ability to pioneer advanced treatments for cancers throughout the body; the Company's belief that it is on track to submit further clinical updates to scientific congresses in 2H 2025 and the planned content of such updates; the Company's ability to explore a higher dose level of VMT-α-NET; the Company's commitment to engage with the FDA to evaluate the clinical utility of dosimetry estimates and analyses in the development of its proprietary RPTs; the Company's expectation that patients currently being evaluated for entry into its VMT-α-NET study will enroll into Cohort 3 if they qualify; the ability of the Company's proprietary technology utilizing the alpha emitting isotope 212Pb to deliver powerful radiation specifically to cancer cells via specialized targeting moieties; the Company's prediction that the use of complementary imaging diagnostics that incorporate the same targeting moieties provides the opportunity to personalize treatment and optimize patient outcomes; the Company's belief that its "theranostic" approach enables the ability to see a specific tumor and then treat it to potentially improve efficacy and minimize toxicity; the Company's ability to grow its regional network of drug product finishing facilities, enabled by its proprietary 212Pb generator, to deliver patient-ready products for clinical trials and commercial operations; and other statements that are not historical fact. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Certain factors that may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements in this press release are described under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in the Company's other filings with the SEC, and in the Company's future reports to be filed with the SEC and available at Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of this date. Unless required to do so by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Media and Investor Relations Contacts: Perspective Therapeutics IR:Annie J. Cheng, CFAir@ Russo Partners, LLCNic JohnsonPerspectiveIR@
