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# Most Detailed View of Dark Matter Mapped By Hubble

#### CmdrTaco posted more than 3 years ago | from the final-frontier dept.

93

astroengine writes "Building on previous studies by the Hubble Space Telescope, new analysis of gravitational lensing data has revealed the most detailed map of the distribution of dark matter yet. The distribution appears as a beautiful ghost-like or ethereal haze and could have serious ramifications on our understanding as to how galaxy clusters form and evolve."

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (2, Informative)

#### Anonymous Coward | more than 3 years ago | (#34248346)

there's a 25sec advertisement on the front of this linked video and then something fairly average that i couldn't see through to the end. which kind of begs the question of whether there is any decent hubble-related comedy out there?

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (2, Funny)

#### NatasRevol (731260) | more than 3 years ago | (#34248824)

You're just not looking far enough...

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (3, Informative)

#### bmo (77928) | more than 3 years ago | (#34251172)

With regards to your sig, it's not Apple you should thank, but the fine folks at KDE.org which did all the heavy lifting. Webkit is a modified version of khtml.

Just sayin'

--
BMO

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (1)

#### NatasRevol (731260) | more than 3 years ago | (#34257390)

Really? ALL the heavy lifting? You might want to look at what Apple has contributed back to the project since 2002. Which is exactly what open source is all about.

And then let me know when you see a phone that ships with KHTML on it.

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (2, Informative)

#### I_Human (781026) | more than 3 years ago | (#34250678)

Raises the question! Begging the question is a logical fallacy that has to do with circular logic.

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (1)

#### VShael (62735) | more than 3 years ago | (#34252660)

which kind of begs the question of whether there is any decent hubble-related comedy out there?

Rule 34, coming right u--

Oh wait, you said hubble-related *comedy*. My bad.

### Re:You want pictures of Dark Matter? (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | more than 3 years ago | (#34254124)

Use it right. [begthequestion.info]

### Just a question (3, Interesting)

#### Burnhard (1031106) | more than 3 years ago | (#34248240)

I'm just asking the question, because I don't have a great deal of knowledge about this, but could an alternative explanation be that our theory of gravity is wrong?

### Re:Just a question (1)

#### immakiku (777365) | more than 3 years ago | (#34248344)

Yea. The discovery is that, IF our theory of gravity is correct, this is more evidence for the existence of dark matter.

### Re:Just a question (1)

#### geekoid (135745) | more than 3 years ago | (#34248414)

well, more correctly: If this isn't caused by some property of gravity we have previously not known about, then it's more evidence of dark matter.

the Theory of gravity is just our understanding of the properties of gravity, and how to measure it. IT sin't wrong. It's provable correct. That doesn't mean more data won't refine our understanding.

### Re:Just a question (0)

#### Anonymous Coward | more than 3 years ago | (#34248766)

It's provable correct. That doesn't mean more data won't refine our understanding.

Perhaps. On the other hand no-one has ever made a measurement without explaining something as an measurement error.
Proof is an elusive thing.

### Re:Just a question (2, Informative)

#### BlackPignouf (1017012) | more than 3 years ago | (#34249240)

You have it backwards : nothing in physics is "provable correct".

A theory is only useful till it is proven incomplete or incorrect. If it holds a very long time, it is only "probably correct" or "correct enough for today".

The phenomenon that led scientists to develop the concept of dark matter could very well be hints that our theory of gravity is wrong/incomplete.

### Nothing is provably correct (2, Informative)

#### sjbe (173966) | more than 3 years ago | (#34250512)

It's provable correct.

No model in physics is "provably correct". That's not how the scientific process works. Scientific hypothesis and their resulting models can never be proven conclusively correct, they can only dis-proven. You can support a model with vast amounts of evidence and be quite confident that it is a useful and accurate model but it only takes a single piece of evidence to establish that the model is wrong. When we say something is a physical law we are basically saying we have a mathematical model for how this works and we've studied the hell out of it and every piece of evidence we've gathered so far supports the correctness of the model. That is NOT the same thing as saying we have proven this model to be correct - it is saying we have been unable to prove this model is wrong.

Of course we can also still use models that we know are less accurate (provably INcorrect) if they provide good approximations under known circumstances. We know relativity is a more accurate model of the physical world than Newtonian models for a great many problems. But the differences are negligible under many conditions and the relativistic models are much more mathematically cumbersome.

### Re:Just a question (1)

#### symbolset (646467) | more than 3 years ago | (#34251716)

It's not actually proof of anything. It is rather a graphical representation of the where the invisible mass would have to be to explain the difference between observed phenomena and our gravity model. Let us consider it not a proof, but a map of our ignorance. A lovely, mysterious misty map - which just happens to be in the form of Cthulu or the Flying Spaghetti monster, by mere coincidence.

### Re:Just a question (5, Informative)

#### Fluffeh (1273756) | more than 3 years ago | (#34248958)

but could an alternative explanation be that our theory of gravity is wrong?

Yea. The discovery is that, IF our theory of gravity is correct, this is more evidence for the existence of dark matter.

It is something more along the lines of this:
We have a good number of formulas and calculations that work properly with the things we can measure - planets, the sun, cars, planes, kitchen scales.
One of these might be:
y + 3 = 5
Nice and simple for this example. Lets say that the "y" here represents gravity and the formula has been proven in every experiment we have done.
We therefore assume that this calculation is correct and true. BUT when we try to use this calculation when looking at things like galaxies, we seem to find the wrong answer:
y + 3 = 7.2
This is clearly not correct, but as we don't want to throw out all the formulas and understanding we have about how things work, we add another variable to the formula like so:
y + 3 + x = 5
The "y" still represents gravity, but now we add the "x" which represents something we don't understand and we don't know where it came from. We call it Dark Matter because we can't see it, don't seem to be able to interact with it and have no real idea of what it is - but with this new addition to the formula, the answer once again comes out at what we know (think) to be true. We just now need to find what this x variable is.

THAT is why finding/understanding Dark Matter (and on that note, Dark Energy) is so important. We know (think we know) the right answers, but our formulas just don't seem to fit so well when applied to certain really, really, really big things (like clusters, superclusters etc). When we find this "x" in the formula, it will once again work perfectly for all our calculations.

### Re:Just a question (1)

#### musicalmicah (1532521) | more than 3 years ago | (#34251894)

That is the most elegant explanation of dark matter that I have ever seen or heard.

### Re:Just a question (1)

#### hitmark (640295) | more than 3 years ago | (#34252610)

Indeed. And it reminds me of how when Einstein first presented his theory of relativity, he had a constant (somewhat like that X) in there to maintain a steady state universe. But soon after new observations favored a expanding universe. So the constant was removed and the theory have been found to be highly accurate since then. So sometimes a X is not added, but removed, because it was put there based on either unreliable data or assumptions by the scientist(s) working on it. Such assumptions show up in various places like psychology, egyptology, economics, and mostly thanks to how the field was bootstrapped.

### Re:Just a question (1)

#### Fluffeh (1273756) | more than 3 years ago | (#34264924)

That is the most elegant explanation of dark matter that I have ever seen or heard.

Indeed. And it reminds me of how when Einstein first presented his theory of relativity, he had a constant (somewhat like that X) in there to maintain a steady state universe.

I know this is off topic, but thank you. Those two comments on my post just made my day! :)

### Re:Just a question (3, Informative)

#### Anonymous Coward | more than 3 years ago | (#34248370)

Dynamical studies of our own galaxy show there's a lot of invisible matter in it. This means that something has to happen with gravitational theory within a region much smaller than the observable universe, at speeds of only a few hundred kilometers per hour. The modified theory also has to conform to the known motions of solar system objects, which are known to extremely high accuracy. These conditions are very hard to meet.

### Re:Just a question (0, Troll)

#### BlackPignouf (1017012) | more than 3 years ago | (#34248426)

Indeed.

As we all know, pi = 3.
While I'm sure my theory is correct, it doesn't quite fit for some calculations so I introduce a dark number.

Thanks to this dark number, I can approximate the perimeter of a circle!

Problem solved.