Dark matter’s tendrils revealed
Source: Nature
Direct measurement of a dark-matter ‘filament’ confirms its existence in a galaxy supercluster.
A ‘finger’ of the Universe’s dark-matter skeleton, which ultimately dictates where galaxies form, has been observed for the first time. Researchers have directly detected a slim bridge of dark matter joining two clusters of galaxies, using a technique that could eventually help astrophysicists to understand the structure of the Universe and identify what makes up the mysterious invisible substance known as dark matter.
According to the standard model of cosmology, visible stars and galaxies trace a pattern across the sky known as the cosmic web, which was originally etched out by dark matter — the substance thought to account for almost 80% of the Universe’s matter. Soon after the Big Bang, regions that were slightly denser than others pulled in dark matter, which clumped together and eventually collapsed into flat ‘pancakes’. “Where these pancakes intersect, you get long strands of dark matter, or filaments,” explains Jörg Dietrich, a cosmologist at the University Observatory Munich in Germany. Clusters of galaxies then formed at the nodes of the cosmic web, where these filaments crossed.
The presence of dark matter is usually inferred by the way its strong gravity bends light travelling from distant galaxies that lie behind it — distorting their apparent shapes as seen by telescopes on Earth. But it is difficult to observe this 'gravitational lensing' by dark matter in filaments because they contain relatively little mass.
Dietrich and his colleagues got around this problem by studying a particularly massive filament, 18 megaparsecs long, that bridges the galaxy clusters Abell 222 and Abell 223. Luckily, this dark bridge is oriented so that most of its mass lies along the line of sight to Earth, enhancing the lensing effect, explains Dietrich. The team examined the distortion of more than 40,000 background galaxies, and calculated that the mass in the filament is between 6.5 × 1013 and 9.8 × 1013 times the mass of the Sun. Their results are reported in Nature today1.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/news/dark-matter-s-tendrils-revealed-1.10951
This is a big deal... and Nature doesn't post crap
= new reply since forum marked as read
The FSM appears in many guises...
Gas heated by friction does not give off x-ray or synchrotron radiation. As a matter of fact neither does melting snowballs. But they (astrophysicists) keep making shit up to keep standard models, and funding in place.
I find it telling that they have introduced the jargen put forth by plasma cosmology to describe the actions and apperence of their "dark matter" like "plasma" and "filament", but deny the simple fact before their eyes.
The Universe is not an electrically neutral entity. Yes, "plasma filaments" connect astronomical bodies such as super-clusters and local groups, galaxies and stars. But they are not some fictional, magical element that has super-duper secret properties. They are conduits of electrically charged plasma compressed into filaments by the magnetic fields created only in the presence of electrical currents. Durring conditions of relatively low current charges, those filiments are dark. but they still give of synchrotron radiation (only present during high energy/electrical events, not friction), and small amounts of x-rays.
So yes, it's dark. Yes, it's matter. But I'm sorry, but it's just electricity.
I don't understand these things. This is at least a branch of physics, right?
