Tag: dark matter
Astronomers may have detected signatures of elusive dark matter — a mysterious, invisible material that permeates the universe, but has so far proved undetectable.
Earth & Space News March 28, 2015: Space weather; Earthquake watch; NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Find Clues that May Help Identify Dark Matter; Best View Yet of Dusty Cloud Passing Galactic Centre Black Hole; More Evidence for Groundwater on Mars; Global weather; Thunderstorms Soak Chile Desert in 7 Years of Rain in 12 hours; Near record cold in Cincinnati
Through the analysis of light from distant galactic clusters, astronomers have detected a mysterious signal that they’re having a hard time explaining. Although the signal is weak, could it be the much sought-after direct evidence for dark matter? Dark matter pervades the entire universe and makes up for the bulk of its mass, but what is it? We know it’s out there and oodles of indirect evidence for its presence, but seeing a direct signal has so far proven elusive.
The hidden tendrils of dark matter that underlie the visible Universe may have been traced out for the first time. Cosmology theory predicts that galaxies are embedded in a cosmic web of “stuff”, most of which is dark matter. Astronomers obtained the first direct images of a part of this network, by exploiting the fact that a luminous object called a quasar can act as a natural “cosmic flashlight”. The quasar illuminates a nearby gas cloud measuring two million light-years across.
