Tag Archive for 'Dark matter'

‘Baby universes’ branching off of our Universe shortly after the Big Bang appear to us as black holes. Image credit: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe.

Is All Dark Matter in Universe Made of Primordial Black Holes?

Dec 28, 2020 by News Staff

In a new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of theoretical physicists described a scenario for the formation of primordial...

This image shows the spiral galaxy Messier 63, widely known as the Sunflower Galaxy. The image was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

New Research Supports ‘Modified Gravity’ Theory

Dec 17, 2020 by News Staff

Dark matter proponents theorize that most of the known Universe is actually made of material that doesn’t interact with light, making it invisible and...

As the CMB light (left image) travels through the Universe until observed on Earth (right image), the direction in which the electromagnetic wave oscillates (orange line) is rotated by the angle β; the rotation could be caused by dark matter or dark energy interacting with the CMB light, which changes the patterns of polarization (black lines inside the images); the red and blue regions in the images show hot and cold regions of the CMB, respectively. Image credit: Y. Minami / KEK.

Astrophysicists Find Hints of Beyond-Standard-Model Physics in Universe’s Oldest Light

Nov 30, 2020 by News Staff

Using the polarization data from ESA’s Planck satellite, a mission that have studied the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest light in the Universe,...

This Hubble image shows the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF4. Image credit: van Dokkum et al, doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0d92.

Tidal Stripping Explains Lack of Dark Matter in Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy NGC 1052-DF4

Nov 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected tidal tails in NGC 1052-DF4, a dark-matter-deficient galaxy some 65 million light-years...

Anomalies in nuclear physics experiments may show signs of a new force. Image credit: Jw210913.

Physicists Propose New Theory on Origin of Dark Matter

Oct 21, 2020 by News Staff

In a paper published this month in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of physicists described a new mechanism of dark matter production. Baker...

This artist’s impression shows a supermassive black hole in the center of SDSS J1030+0524 and six galaxies -- four Lyman-break galaxies and two Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies -- trapped in its gas web. The large web-like structure extends over 300 times the size of the Milky Way. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Web of the Giant: Astronomers Spot Six Galaxies around Monster Quasar

Oct 2, 2020 by News Staff

Using the MUSE and FORS2 instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have spotted a group of six galaxies around SDSS J1030+0524, a...

Abdullah et al. determined that matter makes up about 31% of the total amount of matter and energy in the Universe. Image credit: Mohamed Abdullah, University of California Riverside.

Astrophysicists Measure Total Amount of Matter in Universe

Sep 29, 2020 by News Staff

Using data on a sample of 756 galaxy clusters identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a team of astrophysicists from the United States and Egypt...

This Hubble image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5585. Hotspots of star formation can be seen along the galaxy’s faint spiral arms. These regions shine a brilliant blue, contrasting strikingly against the ever-black background of space. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the near-infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Tully / Gagandeep Anand.

Hubble Spots Dark Matter-Rich Spiral Galaxy

Sep 21, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of an unusual spiral galaxy called NGC 5585. This Hubble image...

This Hubble image shows the massive galaxy cluster MACSJ 1206. Embedded within the cluster are the distorted images of distant background galaxies, seen as arcs and smeared features. These distortions are caused by the dark matter in the cluster, whose gravity bends and magnifies the light from faraway galaxies, an effect called gravitational lensing. This phenomenon allows astronomers to study remote galaxies that would otherwise be too faint to see. Overlaid on the image are small-scale concentrations of dark matter, represented in this artist’s impression in blue. Dark matter is the invisible glue that keeps stars bound together inside a galaxy and makes up the bulk of the matter in the Universe. These blue halos reflect how the galaxy cluster’s dark matter is distributed, revealed by new results from Hubble. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / G. Caminha, University of Groningen / M. Meneghetti, Observatory of Astrophysics and Space Science of Bologna / P. Natarajan, Yale University / CLASH Team / M. Kornmesser.

New Observations Suggest Missing Ingredient in Current Dark Matter Theories

Sep 11, 2020 by News Staff

The large mass of a galaxy cluster deflects light from background objects, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. The large-scale gravitational lens...

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this image of NGC 1052-DF2 on November 16, 2017. Image credit: NASA / ESA / P. van Dokkum, Yale University.

Self-Interacting Dark Matter Helps Explain Formation of Dark-Matter-Deficient Galaxies

Sep 10, 2020 by News Staff

The so-called self-interacting dark matter theory helps explain why NGC 1052-DF2 and NGC 1052-DF4, a pair of ultra-diffuse galaxies located approximately...

Simulation showing distribution of dark matter particles around a galaxy. Image credit: Gupta et al / ASTRO 3D / IllustrisTNG Collaboration.

Study: Massive Galaxies Grow Large by Eating Their Smaller Satellites

Apr 22, 2020 by News Staff

In a new study, an international team of astronomers led by ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) combined data...

Reynolds et al used Chandra to look for extraordinarily low-mass axion-like particles in the Perseus galaxy cluster, a group of galaxies located 240 million light-years away from Earth. The observation lasting over five days showed no evidence for certain axion-like particles, which some theorists think can explain dark matter. The lack of detection in these Chandra observations helps rule out some versions of string theory, a set of models intended to tie together all known forces, interactions, and particles. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Cambridge / Reynolds et al.

Astrophysicists Perform Test of String Theory

Mar 25, 2020 by News Staff

Astrophysicists using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have looked for signs of an as-yet undetected particle predicted by string theory, a set of models...

In shaping the Universe, gravity builds a vast cobweb-like structure of filaments tying galaxies and clusters of galaxies together along invisible bridges hundreds of millions of light-years long. This is known as the cosmic web. Image credit: Burchett et al.

Astronomers Use Slime Mold to Reveal Cosmic Web’s Dark Threads

Mar 11, 2020 by News Staff

Physarum polycephalum, a single-cell organism known as slime mold, builds complex web-like filamentary networks in search of food, always finding near-optimal...

A simulation of the large-scale structure of the Universe with filaments of dark matter in blue and places of galaxy formation in yellow. Image credit: Zarija Lukic / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

New Candidate Particle for Dark Matter: D-Star Hexaquark

Mar 4, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Dark matter is the mysterious substance that makes up roughly a quarter of the Universe. There is strong indirect evidence for its existence from measurements...

No one knows what dark matter is, but this invisible form of matter makes up roughly a quarter of the Universe. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Astrophysicists are Taking Dark Matter’s Temperature

Jan 16, 2020 by News Staff

Astrophysicists have very little idea of what dark matter is and they have yet to detect a dark matter particle. But they do know that the gravity of clumps...

Each of these Hubble images reveals four distorted images of a background quasar and its host galaxy surrounding the central core of a foreground massive galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Nierenberg, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory / T. Treu, University of California, Los Angeles.

Hubble Uses Quadruple-Image Gravitational Lenses to Capture Small-Scale Clumps of Dark Matter

Jan 10, 2020 by News Staff

According to the widely-accepted ‘cold dark matter’ theory, all galaxies are embedded within clouds of dark matter. Dark matter itself consists of...

Milky Way’s center produces more high-energy gamma rays than can be explained by known sources. This image shows the Milky Way in visible light and a gamma-ray map from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / A. Mellinger, Central Michigan University / T. Linden, University of Chicago.

Annihilating Dark Matter May Lurk in Milky Way’s Center

Dec 12, 2019 by News Staff

Gamma rays — the most energetic waves in the electromagnetic spectrum — are typically produced by the hottest, most extreme objects in the...

X17 Particle Might Solve Mystery of Dark Matter

Dec 10, 2019 by The Conversation

Professor Attila Krasznahorkay and his colleagues at ATOMKI (the Institute of Nuclear Research in Debrecen, Hungary) recently published a paper that hints...

The top row of this mosaic features Hubble images of three spiral galaxies, each of which weighs several times as much as the Milky Way. The bottom row shows three even more massive spiral galaxies that qualify as super spirals, which were observed by the ground-based Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The galaxy at lower right, 2MFGC 08638, is the most massive super spiral known to date, with a dark matter halo weighing at least 40 trillion Suns. Image credit: NASA / ESA / P. Ogle & J. DePasquale, STScI / SDSS.

Super Spirals Spin Faster Than Expected, Astronomers Say

Oct 18, 2019 by News Staff

Super spirals are the most massive star-forming disk galaxies in the Universe. They are much larger, brighter, and more massive than our own Milky Way...

Milky Way Captured Few Dwarf Galaxies from Nearby Large Magellanic Cloud

Oct 11, 2019 by News Staff

Our Milky Way Galaxy is orbited by more than 50 companion galaxies. According to new research led by University of California, Riverside astronomers, several...

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