 |
| Dark Matter, Tinted Blue (Hubble photo) |
Dark matter, which Wikipedia describes as a kind of invisible matter that exerts a gravitational pull, has remained quite elusive.
Engadget
reports that even the most powerful telescopes have been unable to make dark matter observable. This is because “it neither emits nor absorbs light.”
Nevertheless, a team of scientists recently announced that a breakthrough could be imminent. They
observed a spike within data “from the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster” that corresponds with current theories about the qualities of dark matter.
“The signal’s distribution within the galaxy…[is] concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges.”
If this is, indeed, a sign of dark matter, then scientists now know “where to look and what to look for to observe it.”
They can also customize telescopes to study these signals.
Since it is too early to tell whether or not these unique signals are from dark matter, another question arises.
If not from dark matter, then from what?
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
Copyright December 19, 2014 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment