Scientists Capture First Image of Dark Matter Web (inhabitat.com)

Kristine Lofgren writes: Scientists have long suspected that the universe is woven together by a vast cosmic connector but, until now, they couldn't prove it. Now, for the first time ever, scientists have captured an image of a dark matter bridge, confirming the theory that galaxies are held together by a cosmic web. Using a technique called weak gravitational lensing, researchers were able to identify distortions of distant galaxies as they are influenced by a large, unseen mass -- in this case, a web of dark matter. In order to create a composite image that shows the dark matter web, scientists had to look at more than 23,000 galaxy pairs located 4.5 billion light-years away. "Results show the dark matter filament bridge is strongest between systems less than 40 million light years apart," reports Phys.Org. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Comments

Re:Not exactly direct evidence

[Maritz]

It also means that there's still wiggle room for those who are certain that it doesn't exist.

There appears to be a whole anti-DM subculture. Strong on here. Pretty fucking weird to be honest.

Re:misleading nonsense about fantasy matter

[Maritz]

There has never been what I would consider "evidence" of dark matter, just evidence of a lack of understanding of matter, gravity, or space.

Of course you don't mention what it would take for you to consider evidence, your mind is clearly already made up from putting 'evidence' in scare quotes. But in any case - go ahead and explain the bullet cluster then. I expect your take on things will be fascinating, it might even clear all this up for us.

Re: Not exactly direct evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Because dark matter isn't a thing, it's an observation that our current models don't accurately reflect our observations. Dark matter falls in the same category as the old aether theory; it may exist or maybe we're just wildly wrong. Assuming that it does is a fairly unscientific permits. We've had lovely theories before that turned out to be elegant failures.

Re:misleading nonsense about fantasy matter

[master_p]

Personally I think that the galaxy rotation problem, and consequently the bullet cluster problem, is a relativistic effect and no dark matter exists.

I.e. the existing visible matter warps space in such a way that it increases the rotation speed of the galaxy.

Any mass in space warps the space around it. It is proven again and again, with gravitational waves being the latest proof.

So a very simple explanation is gravity from the mass of the galaxy warps space in such a way that mass around it seems sped up.

Re:Not exactly direct evidence

[dryeo]

We already have an example of weakly interacting matter, namely the neutrino, a particle BTW, that was first postulated to balance some equations (fusion) and then later found in the wild.