Detect Dark Matter’s Mark From Your Backyard
Summary
IEEE Spectrum’s piece details building a DIY radio telescope using a pyramidal horn antenna, simple components (roof flashing, an empty paint can), a low-noise amplifier, and an RTL-SDR to measure the 1,420 MHz hydrogen line. By tracking Doppler shifts across different sky directions and applying the tangent-point method, the author derives Milky Way rotation speeds and argues that dark matter influences galactic dynamics, all using affordable, home-built hardware and basic data analysis. The article showcases accessible, hands-on space science experiments for hobbyists.