Dark Matter Proved Real By Colliding Galaxy Clusters (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“It may be that ultimately the search for dark matter will turn out to be the most expensive and largest null result experiment since the Michelson-Morley experiment, which failed to detect the ether.” -John Moffat

Dark matter is a puzzle that’s now more than 80 years old: the presence of all the known, observable, detectable normal matter — the stuff in the standard model — cannot account for the gravitation of the astronomical objects we observe. But despite our inability to create or detect it in a laboratory, we’re certain of its existence in the Universe.

Numerical simulation of the density of matter when the universe was 4.7 billion years old. Galaxy formation follows the gravitational wells produced by dark matter, where hydrogen gas coalesces, and the first stars ignite. This pattern in the Universe requires dark matter to match what’s observed. Image credit: V. Springel et al. 2005, Nature, 435, 629

The true test of this comes from colliding galaxy clusters, which show a distinct separation between all the known “normal” components, which collide, heat up and emit light, and the gravitational components, which very clearly don’t. At this point, over a dozen distinct colliding clusters show this effect, from some of the smallest known galactic groups to the largest colliding cluster in the Universe: El Gordo.

The colliding galaxy cluster “El Gordo,” the largest one known in the observable Universe, showing the same evidence of dark matter. Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Jee (Univ. of California, Davis), J. Hughes (Rutgers Univ.), F. Menanteau (Rutgers Univ. & Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), C. Sifon (Leiden Obs.), R. Mandelbum (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), L. Barrientos (Univ. Catolica de Chile), and K. Ng (Univ. of California, Davis).

The full suite of evidence is overwhelming, but this one empirical proof should be all the evidence a reasonable person needs to convince themselves!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2daYMhq

“It may be that ultimately the search for dark matter will turn out to be the most expensive and largest null result experiment since the Michelson-Morley experiment, which failed to detect the ether.” -John Moffat

Dark matter is a puzzle that’s now more than 80 years old: the presence of all the known, observable, detectable normal matter — the stuff in the standard model — cannot account for the gravitation of the astronomical objects we observe. But despite our inability to create or detect it in a laboratory, we’re certain of its existence in the Universe.

Numerical simulation of the density of matter when the universe was 4.7 billion years old. Galaxy formation follows the gravitational wells produced by dark matter, where hydrogen gas coalesces, and the first stars ignite. This pattern in the Universe requires dark matter to match what’s observed. Image credit: V. Springel et al. 2005, Nature, 435, 629

The true test of this comes from colliding galaxy clusters, which show a distinct separation between all the known “normal” components, which collide, heat up and emit light, and the gravitational components, which very clearly don’t. At this point, over a dozen distinct colliding clusters show this effect, from some of the smallest known galactic groups to the largest colliding cluster in the Universe: El Gordo.

The colliding galaxy cluster “El Gordo,” the largest one known in the observable Universe, showing the same evidence of dark matter. Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Jee (Univ. of California, Davis), J. Hughes (Rutgers Univ.), F. Menanteau (Rutgers Univ. & Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), C. Sifon (Leiden Obs.), R. Mandelbum (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), L. Barrientos (Univ. Catolica de Chile), and K. Ng (Univ. of California, Davis).

The full suite of evidence is overwhelming, but this one empirical proof should be all the evidence a reasonable person needs to convince themselves!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2daYMhq