Scientists Pinpoint Where Dark Matter Is Hiding in the Universe

By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer | September 30, 2018 10:02am ET

There's a huge amount of matter in the universe that we can't directly see. But scientists can tell it's there. They call it dark matter.

They know it's there because its gravity tugs on the stars and galaxies around it, altering their movement. Dark matter also tugs on light as it passes, bending its path, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. And now, by studying where that lensing appears in the sky, an international team of scientists have released a detailed, 3D map[BI1] of dark matter.

The biggest advantage of the cosmic map, which was published Monday (Sept. 24) in the preprint journal arXiv, is that it will help scientists figure out precisely how and where dark energy — an unseen energy that suffuses the universe, accelerating its expansion — operates in space, researchers said in a statement.

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Scientists Pinpoint Where Dark Matter Is Hiding in the Universe
By analyzing the gravitational lensing of distant galaxies, researchers have created a detailed, 3D map of the distribution of dark matter in the universe.
Credit: HSC PROJECT/UTOKYO
There's a huge amount of matter in the universe that we can't directly see. But scientists can tell it's there. They call it dark matter.

They know it's there because its gravity tugs on the stars and galaxies around it, altering their movement. Dark matter also tugs on light as it passes, bending its path, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. And now, by studying where that lensing appears in the sky, an international team of scientists have released a detailed, 3D map[BI1] of dark matter.

The biggest advantage of the cosmic map, which was published Monday (Sept. 24) in the preprint journal arXiv, is that it will help scientists figure out precisely how and where dark energy — an unseen energy that suffuses the universe, accelerating its expansion — operates in space, researchers said in a statement

"Our map gives us a better picture of how much dark energy there is and tells us a little more about its properties and how it's making the expansion of the universe accelerate," Rachel Mandelbaum, an astronomer at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who was involved in the survey, said in the statement.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/63711-3d-dark-matter-map.html