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Hubble reveals ghostly ring of dark matter
MSNBC ^ | May 15, 2007

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 ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: darkmatter; hubble; space
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To: Captain Rhino
I wasn't saying that the existence of dark matter didn't qualify as a theory. My comment was directed to Jack Black, who posted:

One theory is that dark matter is computonium, that is the end result of advanced intelligence converting local matter and energy into computing AIs.


61 posted on 05/15/2007 1:20:08 PM PDT by TexasAg1996
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To: Hadean

It was created 6000 years ago.


62 posted on 05/15/2007 1:22:14 PM PDT by DungeonMaster (Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.)
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To: Hadean

Cool. Bump for later reading on God blowing some smoke rings.


63 posted on 05/15/2007 1:28:13 PM PDT by Kevmo (Duncan Hunter just needs one Rudy G Campaign Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVBtPIrEleM)
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To: Larry Lucido

“multi, human-generational space team that will perpetuate itself in space”
And force the unborn people to live a life that they didn’t choose, for which they are not at all adapted, which is totally unlike life on Earth, and which they can not leave.
It is totally unreasonable to expect that the people born many years in the future in a metal tube out in space would not go completely mad, because they will never enjoy the sunrise, birds twittering, children playing on the lawn, taking a dog for a walk, climbing a mountain, and the millions of things that we enjoy on this Earth.
Forcing them to live and die in a metal tube is complete arrogant cruelty.
In other words, it’s a dumb idea.


64 posted on 05/15/2007 1:34:42 PM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged (it's not just leftists who are deranged)
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To: TexasAg1996

Errr...ummm...sorry for my misinterpretation of your post.


65 posted on 05/15/2007 1:37:12 PM PDT by Captain Rhino ( Dollars spent in India help a friend; dollars spent in China arm an enemy.)
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To: TexasAg1996
Do giant wild random guesses technically qualify as a “theory?”Only if you have a Ph.D. and can get your ranting published in a journal. Then (especially in cosmology) they do.
66 posted on 05/15/2007 2:02:14 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: Tulsa Ramjet

Your ideas have been explored in dozens, if not hundreds, of science fiction books. You can’t sue people for appropriation of ideas, particularly very general ones that are put out in places like discussion forums. Duh!


67 posted on 05/15/2007 2:05:07 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: DannyTN
From 5 billion light years away, we look like a gleam in God's eye.

Agreed.

68 posted on 05/15/2007 2:07:15 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: Jack Black
Only if you have a Ph.D. and can get your ranting published in a journal. Then (especially in cosmology) they do.

Wow, a Ph.D and a journal? That sure makes it more than just a wild freakin' sci-fi movie guess that dark matter is the result of advanced intelligence producing "computonium" for computing AIs ("computonium" was described in one website as "the maximally efficient arrangement of matter in this universe for performing computation").

I also wonder how many Ph.D journal-publishing global-warming scientists there are.
69 posted on 05/15/2007 2:13:37 PM PDT by TexasAg1996
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To: TexasAg1996
I wasn't saying that the existence of dark matter didn't qualify as a theory. My comment was directed to Jack Black, who posted:

One theory is that dark matter is computonium, that is the end result of advanced intelligence converting local matter and energy into computing AIs.

The theory is given a complete going over in this book (which I've made a link to the author's web site for those who are interested. :


70 posted on 05/15/2007 2:16:58 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: TexasAg1996
I also wonder how many Ph.D journal-publishing global-warming scientists there are.

Many.

BTW: I was not saying that the rules for making a theory make sense, just what I perceive them to be.

71 posted on 05/15/2007 2:18:38 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: RadioAstronomer

ping. thought this might interest you, buddy.

I’m still alive, just been out of pocket for a good while.


72 posted on 05/15/2007 2:35:39 PM PDT by XBob (Jail the employers of the INVADERS !!)
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To: Hadean

It was done using the “Dark Matter” tool in photoshop.


73 posted on 05/15/2007 2:52:50 PM PDT by PsyOp (Cry “Havoc”, and let slip the weasels of politics! – archy.)
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To: Hadean

ghostly ring of dark matter

What I get in the pan when I fry fish in the middle of the campfire.


74 posted on 05/15/2007 3:30:01 PM PDT by sergeantdave (Give Hillary a 50¢ coupon for Betty Crocker's devils food mix & tell her to go home and bake a cake)
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To: Centurion2000

Bung Nebula?

75 posted on 05/15/2007 3:38:09 PM PDT by null and void (The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.)
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged

They would only know what they would know. they would find joys in intersellar space. We live on a cosmic satellite anyway. Its just big and blue. Besides, we would let them take a PlayStation 3 to kill time.


76 posted on 05/15/2007 8:15:43 PM PDT by Tulsa Ramjet ("If not now, when?" "Because it's judgment that defeats us.")
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To: Jack Black

ha ha. so you’ve already started writing? jk.


77 posted on 05/15/2007 8:16:52 PM PDT by Tulsa Ramjet ("If not now, when?" "Because it's judgment that defeats us.")
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To: KevinDavis

ping


78 posted on 05/16/2007 3:13:57 AM PDT by XBob (Jail the employers of the INVADERS !!)
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