Once again, scientists have realized that when it comes to Dark matter, They are missing a piece or two of the puzzle.
Dark matter makes up more than a quarter of the universe, scientists have realized, but they have not yet learned how to look at it directly. (Strange material does not emit light, does not absorb or reflect this, hence the name.) So they turn to the effect they can see, like the debris of dark objects. Takes up space around it, Tweak our view about objects on the other side. But according to a new study, some smaller clusters are distorting much more space than scientists expect.
“One of the characteristics of the real universe is that we are not imprisoned in our current theoretical maneuvers,” said Priyamavad Nataraja, a theoretical astrophysicist at Yale University and co-author of the new research. Said in a statement. “This may indicate a gap in our current understanding of the nature of the dark matter and its properties, as these excellent data have allowed us to investigate the detailed distribution of dark matter on tiny scales.”
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The scientists behind the new research wanted to examine how the current theoretical models of dark matter compare with our spherical observations. So they turned to Galaxy clustersIs, which hides huge amounts of dark matter.
“Galaxy clusters are ideal laboratories for understanding whether computer simulations of the universe reproduce what we know about dark matter and its interaction with bright matter,” said Mass. Leads. Research, the statement said.
The researchers collected observations of three different galaxy clusters using two instruments. Hubble Space Telescope And Very large telescope In Chile. Scientists mapped dark matter into clusters, noting how light the material was.
Among the large-scale distortions that astronomers expect to discover, they also discovered small parts of the military, which marked the locations of individual, small cluster galaxies that would hide their concentrations. Dark matter.
But when researchers combined their Dark Matter map with a prediction about what might look like dark matter in cluster galaxies, the two landscapes did not connect. This means that scientists have not yet solved the riddle of how dark matter behaves.
The research is described A paper Published today (Sept. 11) in the journal Science.
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