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?
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