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Galactic Cluster Suggests Hidden Superstructure

Posted by timothy on from the mommy-that-cloud-looks-like-a-hidden-superstructure dept.

joncrie writes "The nearby galaxy cluster Fornax is facing an intergalactic headwind as it is pulled by an underlying superstructure of dark matter, according to new evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Astronomers think most of the matter in the universe is concentrated in long large filaments of dark matter and that galaxy clusters are formed where these filaments intersect."

23 comments

  1. Sounds like a commercial for a new chocolate bar! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Mmm, nougat.

  2. More information from article. by Silverlancer · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Fast Facts from the article for those interested:

    Fast Facts for Fornax Cluster:
    Credit NASA/CXC/Columbia U./C.Scharf et al.
    Scale Image is 47 arcmin across
    Coordinates (J2000) RA 03h 38m 24.30s | Dec -35 27' 04.80"
    Observation Time 5 days, 18 hours
    Distance Estimate About 65 million light years

  3. Dark Matter Superstructure... by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 3, Funny

    This I gotta see. I mean, it takes 16 weeks to build a house out of premanufactured wood components. How long do you think a galaxy took, even accounting for unionized labor?

    --
    I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
    1. Re:Dark Matter Superstructure... by Andy+Mitchell · · Score: 4, Funny

      According to Genesis, god was the only being in existence at the beginning of time and as such acted as both management and the workforce. This allowed him to be very efficient. Much theological discussion centres around when the first union came into being.

      One possibility that has been suggested was that Lucifer formed the first union and it was an irreconcilable break down in industrial relations that caused the "war in heaven" ultimately leading to Lucifer and his union buddies being made redundant and going off to start "Hell Incorporated", now the universes leading provider of after death imprisonment for the wicked.

      Others say that the first union came about when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. In this case a political agitator in the form of a snake caused considerable problems during a dispute over workers fruit eating rights. Some other accounts suggest that the snake was in fact a union representative sent by Lucifer, making this the second union.

      Whatever the truth is is clear that the unions have throughout history lowered productivity, as the previous poster suggested. Before unions you could create a universe by simply saying "let there be light" now it takes 16 weeks to erect a pre-fabricated home.

    2. Re:Dark Matter Superstructure... by novakyu · · Score: 2, Funny
      One possibility that has been suggested was that Lucifer formed the first union and it was an irreconcilable break down in industrial relations that caused the "war in heaven" ultimately leading to Lucifer and his union buddies being made redundant and going off to start "Hell Incorporated", now the universes leading provider of after death imprisonment for the wicked.

      Are you saying that there were no union-protection laws back then? Why didn't Lucifer simply sue god for unfair labor practices? Surely he could have won a half to a quarter of the universe as settlement?

    3. Re:Dark Matter Superstructure... by Andy+Mitchell · · Score: 5, Funny
      Why didn't Lucifer simply sue god for unfair labor practices?

      That would be because there are no lawyers in heaven :-)

    4. Re:Dark Matter Superstructure... by bunratty · · Score: 3, Funny

      Thankfully, galaxies are made using ionized labor. The negative and positive workers pull together and get the job done faster.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    5. Re:Dark Matter Superstructure... by Alcamar · · Score: 1

      HA, I first saw this and thought "un ionized labor" instead of "union ized labor"

  4. Sci-fi by coeus22 · · Score: 2, Funny

    "The nearby galaxy cluster Fornax is facing an intergalactic headwind as it is pulled by an underlying superstructure of dark matter," ... Sounds like a bad science fiction

  5. Sad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of the five posts to this article so far, two are offtopic, two are jokes and only one is remotely ontopic.

    This *should* be the story of the week - the first possibly solid clues as to the macro structure of the universe. These features are on an absolutely enormous scale - to prove that there is a larger structure to the universe will give us the first idea of what's out there. Of what shape the universe is and even possibly clues as to how it came into being - and where it's going.

    This is profound science. But as with most mind-boggling and cutting edge science, it gets ignored or joked about by the average Joe. It's disapointing really, but I suppose I should know not to expect anything more from the average human than the ability to eat, sleep and reproduce - let alone intelligently explore the universe they inhabit.

    1. Re:Sad. by selderrr · · Score: 3, Funny

      well, now we have three> posts that are offtopic, three that are jokes and only one that is remotely ontopic :-)

      Seems that you tilted the balance in the wrong direction

      --
      When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
    2. Re:Sad. by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 1, Interesting
      I only had a few minutes before bed, and I had decided to post something goofy near the top of the story. This should not be taken as a commentary on the intellectual state of /. readers.

      I am pretty much stunned that there is evidence of something on this scale, but the articles are fairly light on details, and I didn't really know what else to say. If you asked my opinion, I'd say it validates a lot of my own theories that the Universe is not a bunch of dense spots moving through an empty void, but rather an interconnected series of visible / energized matter pockets connected by invisible / de-energized 'dark' matter. I've been using that basic concept as the basis for interstellar travel in my short stories for years now (although, really, thats just sci-fi, I haven't the foggiest clue as to how it works.) And as for the number of posts, this got 11 posts since I went to bed last night, and the North Korea thing got 1500 posts. Perhaps this is big news, but perhaps people are slightly more concerned with an angst-ridden country playing around with nuclear weapons.

      --
      I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
    3. Re:Sad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      R ~ 1/R.

      Silly Prediction 10357: These "enormous scale" structures will start to look more and more like really small stuff *from the inside*.

    4. Re:Sad. by Forbman · · Score: 1

      If, in the end, we get enough data on these galactic threads and map out their fractal nature, and learn that they're exactly the same structure as ghost turds (i.e., dust bunnies, etc) on the floor?

      Hmm..."imagine God deciding to do a little dust cleaning. It might look something like this: , and there go billions of cubic light years of the universe!"

  6. Filament = lensing? by Fallen+Andy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hmm. An on topic post at last (grins).
    Dark matter in filaments implies gravitional lensing
    Any news on that?

    1. Re:Filament = lensing? by rwllama · · Score: 5, Interesting
      No, dark matter in filaments does not have to imply lensing.

      To get gravitational lensing, one has to have a sufficient integrated density along the line of sight. It is fair to surmise that looking "down the pipe" of a filament might produce enough integrated density to produce lensing, but it is not a necessary consequence.

      I haven't heard of any lensing based on filament structures, but the folks who do what is called "weak lensing" might have some statistical arguments that can correlate their results with the likely (or unlikely) presence of filaments.

      The main result I remember associated with filaments is the apparent clumpiness of the galaxy distribution on small scales. If you've got a lot of linear structures where galaxies form, then you get more super-positions of galaxies than would occur in a random distribution. Such arguments can explain the over-numerous of Hickson Compact Groups of Galaxies.

      For those who would like to know what a "filament" might look like, you can see my visualization of large scale structure in the universe called "Cosmic Cruising 2" at http://terpsichore.stsci.edu/~summers/viz/cosmic_c ruising_2/. Please note that this visualization is not from observed galaxy data, but rather from a supercomputer simulation that has roughly the same statistical properties as the real universe.

    2. Re:Filament = lensing? by TMB · · Score: 4, Informative
      I haven't heard of any lensing based on filament structures, but the folks who do what is called "weak lensing" might have some statistical arguments that can correlate their results with the likely (or unlikely) presence of filaments.
      Yes, this is quite measurable. For example, see "A Measurement of Weak Lensing by Large-Scale Structure in Red-Sequence Cluster Survey Fields", Hoekstra et al. 2002, ApJ, 572, 55

      [TMB]
  7. Matrioshka Brains? by mkcmkc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Here's an obligatory link to Matrioshka Brains (a conceivable explanation for dark matter). If you haven't already seen this, you'll probably find it interesting.

    Mike

    --
    "Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
    1. Re:Matrioshka Brains? by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 1

      Here's an obligatory link to Matrioshka Brains (a conceivable explanation for dark matter). If you haven't already seen this, you'll probably find it interesting.

      While Matrioshka brains are indeed fascinating structures, they could only account for baryonic dark matter. The vast majority of dark matter is non-baryonic (in the astronomical sense, which differs somewhat from the particle physics sense, but in this case still means "not normal matter").

    2. Re:Matrioshka Brains? by Teekayfortoowon · · Score: 1

      Dark matter is sapient in origin? It's a disturbing theory, one about as popular with the general public as the smartest Neanderthal's warnings that H. sapiens were poised to take over the earth must have been in his day. Perhaps the evolution of "gray goo" into "computronium" signals a slowly increasing respect for technology.

      This solution also lays to rest the vexing problem known as the Fermi paradox, a.k.a. where the hell are all the aliens? The answer is everywhere--dark matter marks the tombstones of intelligent civilizations.

      We're all just food.

  8. Just one question... by ScienceThinker · · Score: 1

    How does anything get PULLED by a headwind? Simple physics question, that's all.

    1. Re:Just one question... by gothzilla · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Fornax is facing an intergalactic headwind as it is pulled by an underlying superstructure of dark matter"

      It's not being pulled by a headwind. It's facing a headwind.