"Hiding in Plain Sight" Neutron Stars Hint at Known Unknowns About the Dark Side of Our Universe

The Daily Galaxy (Aug. 16) -- According to U. of I. physicist Douglas H. Beck, “Neutrons play some unusual roles in our world. Free neutrons decay in about 900 seconds but, bound in nuclei, they are stable and make up somewhat more than half the mass of the visible universe.” Jesse Shelton, another Illinois physicist, says the discovery of exotic neutron decays would reveal “something amazing about the dark side of our universe: The survival of massive neutron stars would immediately tell us that there isn’t just one dark matter particle, but a whole set of dark particles with their own dark forces.”