Posted on 02/21/2008 7:47:47 PM PST by NormsRevenge
PARIS (AFP) - An international team of astronomers peering into the deep Universe said on Thursday they had mapped the biggest-ever structure of the enigmatic substance known as dark matter.
They detected a web of matter spanning 270 million light years, or more than 2,000 times the size of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, they said.
Around a fifth of the Universe is believed to consist of dark matter, spreading out in mysterious filaments, sheets and clusters.
But, with present technology, it cannot be seen directly. Its existence is perceived indirectly, through the gravitational pull it exerts on light.
The 19-member observational team drew up the map from images provided by the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope located in Hawaii.
Their technique is based on gravitational lensing, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein under which light from distant galaxies is deflected by dark matter as it travels through the cosmos to us.
The work, published in the US journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, confirms theories about the massive extent of dark-matter structures and the lensing technique, they say.
"The size of the structure we measured corresponds to the limits of our current observational capacity," Martin Kilbinger of the Paris Institute of Astrophysics told AFP.
"In reality, these structures are probably even bigger."
This NASA handout image received in 2007 shows dark matter ring in a galaxy center. An international team of astronomers peering into the deep Universe said on Thursday they had mapped the biggest-ever structure of the enigmatic substance known as dark matter. (AFP/NASA-HO/File)
This should be good.
There’s no such thing as “dark matter.”
It’s a mathematical construct, nothing more.
Biggest Dark Matter Structure ever? Hildabeast visible from space?
Notice how this gets announced during the Democrat debates - to steer our attention away from the OTHER dark forces of the universe.
In 2008 we redefine:
Seasons ==> ‘Global Warming’
Space ==> ‘Dark Matter’
I wish I had their equipment for a few weeks of viewing..
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)
Cosmologists unfold the dark cosmic web
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/CFHTLS0802/
So is G
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/
The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is a non-profit organization that operates a world class 3.6 meter telescope atop Mauna Kea, a dormant Hawaiian volcano rising 4,200 meters above the Pacific Ocean. The Observatory headquarters are located in Waimea (Kamuela), where CFHT has been part of the community since 1977. The CFHT team of some 50 people includes engineers, technicians, astronomers, and administrators.
Perhaps. But I have no problem accepting that there is matter out there that doesn’t generate light, e.g. rocky planets, burned out suns, whatever. When suns die out there is dark matter debris.
Space ping
Anyone else besides me read the title as Cosmetologists first and get confused?
“Biggest Dark Matter Structure ever? Hildabeast visible from space?”
ha ha. But, don’t you mean Hillary-beast visible from space?
http://www.sapere.it/tca/MainApp?srvc=dcmnt&url=/tc/storia/percorsi/Islam/LemmIslam.html
Bump
There’s no such thing as dark matter. Dark matter is a necessary add-on to the wrong idea that gravity and not electromag forces mainly bind the cosmos together.
So how do they know it is not just bent space?
“Dark matter is a necessary add-on to the wrong idea that gravity and not electromag forces mainly bind the cosmos together.”
And not understanding that gravity is a component of electromagnetic forces.
Matter of fact, just about everything is a matter of electromagnetic forces.
Bump for later
R2X10-5th/sigma8+{0}x3.1417({2}...yes!!..yes!! its all making sense now!!!
Coruscant?
Can there be property rights in dark matter?
One of many, actually. When you need to posit an entire scalar field to save the observations, the theory that predicted a zero field everywhere is wrong.
Hmmm. I found this article that says it does exist.
"A universe that's dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking," said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona at Tucson, leader of the research team. "These results are direct proof that dark matter exists.................Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the study. "No matter what you do [in devising new theories] you're going to have to believe in dark matter," he said.
go here for the full article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14453775/
Except the strong, weak, and uh... gravity forces.
Please give us your unification details, and win the Nobel Prize in Physics in the process.
Why isn’t this a pattern of light sources?
If I photograph a hand full of dirt thrown in the air, do I call the picture a pattern of the surrounding air?
Hmmm from MSNBC. Why should I believe it?
The article has the usual lamestream media gee-whiz take on a lot of science -- reporting speculation and the observing scientists' opinions as facts.
For example the caption for the picture, "Other telescopes were used to detect the bulk of the matter in the clusters, which turns out to be dark matter (highlighted in blue)." Should more accurately read, "Other telescopes were used to generate the blue highlighted area based on hypotheses of how matter affects light passing through it."
Note that there is no evidence that the blue highlighted matter is any different than ordinary matter except that it has, apparently moved away from the site of the event more quickly than the matter revealed by X-ray emission.
The claim that "The hot gas — normal matter — was slowed by a drag force described as the cosmic equivalent of air resistance. But the dark matter was not slowed by this effect, presumably because it does not interact with normal matter, as theory had predicted." Assumes that the matter highlighted in blue also experienced the drag force. Perhaps it is matter that was ejected without passing through the area creating the "drag force" thereby not being slowed nor heated so as to emit X-rays.
Current accepted theories equate "bent space" to mass. You can't have one without the other.
If you can have "bent space" without mass then some entirely new theory about how space comes to be "bent" must be devised. A much more difficult theory to derive than speculations about the nature of this, so called, "dark matter" and "dark energy".
If I photograph a hand full of dirt thrown in the air, do I call the picture a pattern of the surrounding air?
Consider that most of modern day cosmological evidence and most sub-atomic evidence comes from smudges and streaks on photographic plates or electronic emissions from detectors whose sensitivity is such that they are subject to random readings.
But, somehow, the observations seem to be reproducible and consistent with proposed theories.
If this stuff was 95% of the universe as claimed, you’d be vacuuming it off your carpets four or five times a day. The entire theory is munged.
Why does the phrase “troops in the open” come to mind when I look at that picture?
Nope. Even if true (which they aren't), the results would have been *indirect* inferences that dark matter exists...a far cry from direct proof.
No matter. Dark matter doesn't exist, except as a mathematical construct.
If the deed can be recorded, which presupposes state-registered surveyors following accepted procedure and the willingness of clerks in the Recorders Office to make an entry in their books.
Very well, professor .... something is causing the phenomena observed. What do you think is doing it?
Well, the correct answer is that we don’t know.
Could be curved space.
Could be data misinterpretation.
Might be some unknown force.
Might be some unknown effect.
Might be that our model of space/time is incorrect.
Which means, you don't know, either, and thus your confidently expressed opinion about the non-existence of "dark matter" is rather presumptuous.
Nope. Dark matter started as a mathematical construct, and no direct evidence has shown it to be anything else.
I would venture to say that the fact of something causing gravitational lensing is sufficient to say that whatever it is, is a bit more than a "mathematical construct."
Nope. For one thing, our galaxy isn’t headed in the direction of that supposed “dark matter.”
It may be lensing, but it’s just a camera lens, not gravity from an unknown source pulling objects toward it.
True, but the whole thing could just go OBAMA, just like THAT...NOT!
Sigh. Well, I guess you must be much smarter and more capable than the fellows doing the math for this study....
Sigh...the lack of gravitational pull on physical objects is a fatal flaw. Whether I’m smarter than them or not, they’ve got to deal with such demonstrable flaws.
Until they do (which they may not), dark matter can only be accurately stated to be a fictional mathematical construct useful for modeling.
No. Like neutrinos from the Sun, the particles responsible for dark matter are moving at close to the speed of light. ~5*1013 solar neutrinos pass though your body every second and you were completely unaware of that.
1. Galileo might be taken as the initiator of this unfortunate tendency to reduce everyting to math.
2. Maybe it has, but since mathematical reductionism is the law, who would know.
It is bent space. In order for space to be curved, and energy density must be responsible for that curvature. Since no other interaction can be observed in the region, the particles responsible for the energy density must be non, or very weakly interacting.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.