Posted on 05/15/2007 12:13:56 PM PDT by Hadean
Astronomers have discovered an enormous, ghostly ring of dark matter 5 billion light years away — the most blatant evidence to date for the existence of a mysterious substance hidden throughout the universe.
Dark matter makes up a vast majority of gravity-exerting mass in the universe, while only about 10 percent is matter we can see and touch. If dark matter didn't exist, scientists say, galaxies like the Milky Way would have already flown apart from a severe lack of gravitational "glue."
Researchers pointed the aging but powerful Hubble Space Telescope toward a cluster of galaxies known as cluster ZwCl0024+1652. At first glance, the then-unknown ring looked like a ripple in a pond over the twinkling galactic cluster. Story continues below ↓advertisement
"I was annoyed when I saw the ring because I thought it was an artifact," said M. James Jee of Johns Hopkins University.
But it wasn't a glitch.
The more Jee and others tried to remove the ring by tweaking the data, the more the ring-like anomaly stuck out like sore thumb. "It took more than a year to convince myself that the ring was real," Jee said. "I've looked at a number of clusters and I haven't seen anything like this."
Because so much dark matter resides in the ring, astronomers said, it bends the light around it to create the ripple effect — dark matter's calling card. The findings were announced at a NASA press conference today.
The ring, 2.6-million light-years wide, formed when two huge clusters of galaxies slammed together in a head-on collision roughly 1 to 2 billion years ago, puffing the mysterious matter outward, the astronomers figure. If the galactic hit-and-run had occurred outside of Earth's line-of-sight, the result might look more like an oval.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Is it surrounding Michael Moore? :)
One theory is that dark matter is computonium, that is the end result of advanced intelligence converting local matter and energy into computing AIs.
Lets send Rosie O’Donell to investigate this matter personally.
Look at all those galaxies, we are not alone.
“It took more than a year to convince myself that the ring was real,”
What a job. I’d like to get paid to stare at something for a year. Then again, no thanks.
When you’re in space looking at the earth and moon, you only see “dark space” since, there is nothing there. Are we simply looking at the space between objects and getting the wrong inference?
Red or white?
It’s Al Gores fault.
Is that a ring of dark matter around Uranus?
Might as well be, the nearest hot galactic chicks are thousands of light years away, although if you visit my website you can virtually meet thousands of galactobabes
who just would love to meet YOU.
Etc.etc.etc
Why would they want to do that, i.e. "remove the ring?" Is this an explicit admission of tweaking data to support preconceived notions?
'Scuse me!
saveit bump
Did they try cleaning the lens on the Hubble to be sure?
The space between earth and moon doesn't distort their images or obscure them. Dark matter is detected by the fact that it distorts objects or bends the light from them in some way.
But if there is nothing more to learn of space travel, we are alone. At least effectively.
That is impressive stuff. I can’t wait for the James Webb telescope to really kick exploration up some notches.
How do we know what we look like from 5 billion light years away?
“Are we simply looking at the space between objects and getting the wrong inference?”
Well, it’s space that is bending light, indicating gravity, so I would say, “no.” There is certainly SOMETHING there.
Mogen David
rofl
Do giant wild random guesses technically qualify as a “theory?”
Looks to me like a ghostly ring of no matter.
ping
Unless it was something else that bent the light.
Klaatu barada nikto.
Considering the age of the earth and the speed of light, this is probably what we look like from 5 billion light years away.
Now you're getting into a whole new area of speculation, eh? Gravity waves, maybe?
I hereby name this “Rosie’s Sphincter”.
—Is this an explicit admission of tweaking data to support preconceived notions?—
Very similar to the Globull Warming scam.
There’s a great sci-fi story about aliens rushing to earth because they knew, from their scriptures, that the beings there were created in God’s image, had personal visit from the Son, etc.
They were sorely disappointed when they got here. Contemplated anniliation, thinking perhaps humans were invaders . . . then just going home deeply saddened with decision to lie about what they found.
Sounds familiar
We will be if the telemarketers get to them first.
The Hubble belongs in a museum at the end of its life, not burned up in the atmosphere.
Looks like it should be called the Bung Nebula
Spice.
What was the title and author?
Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve decided to make the announcement of my recent discovery here on FR in regard to dark matter. It’s rather quite shocking once you think about it and I’ve thought about this long and hard but its implications are, well, earth altering. While it is true that man has contemplated trave
I thought that was an upgrade of this one to be called the Webb-Hubble Space Telescope.
Yes, but given the speed at which light (and other electronic transmissions) travel, when you see your "galactobabe's" photo on MySpace, you're only seeing them as they looked 200 million years ago!
The Klingons would retaliate.
From 5 billion light years away, we look like a gleam in God's eye.
thanks, bfl
No idea.
I wish I could remember who has the Space PING list, because this is a good one.
You try scrubbing and soaking, but you still get
A Kinko's fax machine? :-)
A sketch of the luminous part of a galaxy surrounded by a much bigger halo of invisible dark matter. We detect the presence of the dark matter by its gravitational effect on stars and gas within galaxies and on other galaxies. But because it emits little or no light, we cannot see it directly. We do not yet know what the dark matter actually consists of. 
I believe Dark Matter, once understood, will be the key to universe travel. As we all know, our current capabilities of space ship propellent will not allow us to properly reach light year goals, or to go to possible inhabitable planets. All energy sources are developed on earth and I think that is a mistake. This idea came to me in a dream. What is one area that we have not looked for alternative energy sources get us where we would like to go? Space. Dark matter is dark energy, and powerful energy that keeps solar systems together. I propose we embark on understanding this capability, develop a multi, human-generational space team that will perpetuate itself in space as it travels to other worlds and possibilities. They would have to rear their replacement platoon to take over as they aged. The eggs would be in hibernation until rearing would occur. This would probably begin around sixty years old. Their life on the ship would be their world. Just like the monarch butterfly that flies from the north to the south. It is not just one butterfly that does it, but multiple generations going down, and coming back. comments? (if anyone steals my idea for a book, movie, t.v., I'll sue you, because it is already in the can.
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