The Subaru Telescope has noticed the terminal ends of dark matter filaments within the Coma cluster stretching throughout thousands and thousands of sunshine years. That is the primary time that strands of the cosmic internet spanning your complete universe have been immediately detected. This supplies new proof to check theories in regards to the evolution of the universe.
Within the solar system, we’re used to seeing matter gathered into spherical objects like planets, moons, and the sun. However dark matter, which accounts for a lot of the mass within the universe, is believed to exist as an internet of lengthy skinny strands. However like a spider internet, these strands could be onerous to see, so astronomers have usually drawn conclusions based mostly on observations of galaxies and gasoline caught within the internet. That is much like how when you see a useless leaf that seems to hold in midair, you already know there’s a spider internet that you simply can’t see.
A staff of researchers from Yonsei College used the Subaru Telescope to search for direct indicators of dark matter filaments within the Coma cluster, situated 321 million light-years away within the course of the constellation Coma Berenices. Their paper, “Weak-lensing detection of intracluster filaments in the Coma cluster” is printed in Nature Astronomy.
The Coma cluster is likely one of the largest and closest galaxy clusters, making it a very good place to search for faint indicators of dark matter. Paradoxically, as a result of it’s so shut, it additionally seems massive, making it troublesome to look at your complete cluster.
The Subaru Telescope provides the suitable mixture of excessive sensitivity, excessive decision, and large discipline of view, to make these observations potential. By way of strong knowledge evaluation, the staff recognized the terminal segments of the invisible dark matter filaments hooked up to the Coma cluster.
That is the primary time these strands have been confirmed immediately, giving new proof for the concept that dark matter webs stretch throughout the universe.
Extra info:
Kim HyeongHan et al, Weak-lensing detection of intracluster filaments within the Coma cluster, Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02164-w
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Cosmic dark matter internet detected in Coma cluster (2024, February 8)
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