Thanks LucyT for the Yahoo link (which I used to find the original).
Posted on 11/07/2008 3:21:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Nobody knows what dark matter is, but scientists may now have a clue where to look for it.
The strange stuff makes up about 85 percent of the heft of the universe. It's invisible, but researchers know it's there because there is not enough regular matter -- stars and planets and gas and dust -- to hold galaxies and galaxy clusters together. Some other unseen material, dubbed dark matter, must be gluing things together...
A new computer simulation of the evolution of a galaxy like our Milky Way suggests it might be possible to observe high-energy gamma-rays given off by dark matter...
Past studies have indicated that dark matter was crucial in the formation of galaxies, and that the mystery material still hangs around in halos that surround galaxies. The new simulation examined how these dark matter halos might evolve and behave.
The virtual galaxy's halo grew through a series of violent collisions and mergers between much smaller clumps of dark matter that emerged from the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning of the universe. The simulation revealed that gamma-rays produced when particles collided in areas of high dark matter density could be most easily detectable in regions of the Milky Way lying close to the sun -- in the general direction of the galaxy's center.
The scientists figure that NASA's Fermi Telescope should search in this part of the galaxy for a signature glow of dark matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Thanks LucyT for the Yahoo link (which I used to find the original).
Will they change the name?
Glowing matter?
Dim matter?
Sorry.
Glow in the dark matter.
Force lightening. Sidious at work.
3D map by Hubble Space Telescope (in lower left corner) shows clumpy nature of cold, dark matter which is invisible but accounts for most of the Universe's mass. Its gravitational attraction pulls normal matter--the stars in their galaxies--into the large-scale structures seen through telescopes.
The glow is present but not within the visable spectrum.
Well played, sir.
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