dark matter tagged posts

New Evidence in Favor of Dark Matter: The Bars in Galaxies are Spinning more Slowly than we thought

 Kinematic Clues to Bar Evolution for Galaxies in the Local Universe: Why the Fastest Rotating Bars are Rotating Most Slowly. The Astrophysical Journal, 2017; 835 (2): 279 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/835/2/279

Kinematic Clues to Bar Evolution for Galaxies in the Local Universe: Why the Fastest Rotating Bars are Rotating Most Slowly. The Astrophysical Journal, 2017; 835 (2): 279 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/835/2/279

Fastest spinning bars are rotating most slowly because of dark matter. Why do the majority of astronomers believe in dark matter: matter whose composition is unknown but which seems to make up 80% of the mass of the galaxies? The concept was invented in the 1930’s by Fritz Zwicky who used it to explain why the galaxies in the Coma cluster are moving much more quickly than can be explained in terms of their known masses...

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Bump on a Plot from Chandra X-ray observatory reveals excess of X-rays, hinting at Dark Matter

A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies, seemingly caught in a red and blue spider web of eerily distorted background galaxies, makes for a spellbinding picture from the new Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. To make this unprecedented image of the cosmos, Hubble peered straight through the center of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. The gravity of the cluster's trillion stars — plus dark matter — acts as a 2-million-light-year-wide lens in space. This gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of the galaxies located far behind it. Some of the faintest objects in the picture are probably over 13 billion light-years away (redshift value 6). Strong gravitational lensing as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in Abell 1689 indicates the presence of dark matter. Credit: NASA, N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H. Ford (JHU), M. Clampin (STScI),G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory), the ACS Science Team and ESA Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-plot-chandra-x-ray-observatory-reveals.html#jCp

A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies, seemingly caught in a red and blue spider web of eerily distorted background galaxies, makes for a spellbinding picture from the new Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. To make this unprecedented image of the cosmos, Hubble peered straight through the center of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. The gravity of the cluster’s trillion stars — plus dark matter — acts as a 2-million-light-year-wide lens in space. This gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of the galaxies located far behind it. Some of the faintest objects in the picture are probably over 13 billion light-years away (redshift value 6)...

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Can the Donut-Shaped Magnet ‘CAPPuccino submarine’ hunt for Dark Matter?

Scientists at IBS CAPP are prototyping haloscopes - machines that hunt for dark matter. Haloscope have very strong magnets. Helix-shaped magnets (solenoid magnets, on the left) are commonly used in dark matter experiments. CAPP scientists are also investigating the possibility of using donut-shaped magnets, technically known as toroidal magnets, and nicknamed this device "CAPPuccino submarine". Credit: Image courtesy of Institute for Basic Science

Scientists at IBS CAPP are prototyping haloscopes – machines that hunt for dark matter. Haloscope have very strong magnets. Helix-shaped magnets (solenoid magnets, on the left) are commonly used in dark matter experiments. CAPP scientists are also investigating the possibility of using donut-shaped magnets, technically known as toroidal magnets, and nicknamed this device “CAPPuccino submarine”. Credit: Image courtesy of Institute for Basic Science

IBS scientists clarify that toroidal magnets can also look for axions, one of the particle candidates for the mysterious dark matter...

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Galaxy Murder Mystery

This artist's impression shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4921 based on observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ICRAR, NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team. STScI/AURA

This artist’s impression shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4921 based on observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ICRAR, NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team. STScI/AURA

It’s the big astrophysical whodunnit. Across the Universe, galaxies are being killed and the question scientists want answered is, what’s killing them? New research published today by a global team of researchers, based at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), seeks to answer that question. The study reveals that ram-pressure stripping is more prevalent than previously thought, driving gas from galaxies and sending them to an early death by depriving them of the material to make new stars.

The study of 11,000 galaxies shows their gas – the lifeblood for star formation – is being violently ...

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