Hubble Helps Build Most-Detailed Dark Matter Map Yet

[n2doc]

By Lisa Grossman November 12, 2010



Using the Hubble Space Telescope and a cosmic magnifying glass effect, astronomers have put together one of the most detailed maps yet of dark matter in a giant galaxy cluster.

Dark matter is the stubborn, invisible stuff that makes up nearly a quarter of the mass and energy of the universe, but refuses to interact with ordinary matter except through gravity. The only way to know dark matter is there at all is by observing how its mass warps and tugs at visible matter.

When a lot of dark matter clumps together, as in massive galaxy clusters that contain hundreds or thousands of galaxies, it can act as an enormous magnifying glass for even more distant galaxies. The cluster’s gravity stretches and distorts the light from galaxies behind it like a fun house mirror. Astronomers on Earth see multiple warped images of each galaxy, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

Gravitational lensing can give a good idea of how much dark matter is in a cluster, but up until now astronomers had to guess at where exactly the dark matter was.

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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/hubble-dark-matter/

[Poll_Blind]

1. Bah! It's not matter at all, it's a severe kink in the fabric of space-time due to being...

...locked with another membrane. I've had balloons do this when left in a hot car during the 4th of July picnic. Who says all membrane collisions result in extreme events? What if they get bumper-hooked like two cars after an accident?

Warped space-time fabric without intra-universal mass to account for it.

PB

[sakabatou]

2. So the map is being processed?