Ring Of Dark Matter

[Dubh Aingeal]

A story on the NASA site indicates that they may have finally found dark matter using the Hubble telescope. This, though, may be our first 'sighting' of the elusive substance.

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT on May 15 to discuss the strongest evidence to date that dark matter exists. This evidence was found in a ghostly ring of dark matter in the cluster CL0024+17, discovered using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The ring is the first detection of dark matter with a unique structure different from the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas in the cluster. The discovery will be featured in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

[phee]

Some theories actually say that the universe has more Dark Matter then well... "normal matter"

[kellygrrrrrl]

I wanna see a picture....

[phee]

I wanna see a picture....

One cannot "see" dark matter.... it is invisble to the naked eye... it is an abcensce of light, kind of like a shadow that blocks one from seeing other pieces of "regular matter" that either makes or reflects light in the normal spectrum

[BrassFusion]

did they find a ring of dark matter around uranus?

(someone had to say it)

[kellygrrrrrl]

I was kidding.....

Brass......you're fuking crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Dark Matter does indeed make up upwards of 90+% of the universe. That is pretty much a fact.

But, that's only due to the nature of our technological advancement, not anything inherently phenomenal about the "dark matter" itself.

Dark matter isn't any single substance. Its a collective term, used to describe matter/energy that is currently not directly detectable.

Dark matter is just "unknown, undetectable at present" matter/energy. Its not necessarily anything overly special, in many cases its just stuff that is so far away that we cant properly measure it. More matter is being classified by its actual name(s) and being taken out of the list of so-called dark matter as we get better and better detection methods.

We know its there, because of its effects... such as blocking out the view of certain parts of more distant matter, or its gravitational effect on other objects/matter.

[Scary Guy]

I always thought that Dark Matter was the remains of a burnt out star densely packed so that one tablespoon would take 1,000 cranes to lift.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I always thought that Dark Matter was the remains of a burnt out star densely packed so that one tablespoon would take 1,000 cranes to lift.

Thats the usual description of a black hole. The hole is not really a hole, its the massive gravitational pull of the burnt out star sucks everything toward it and most of it never comes back out again. (some radiation does leave but nothing resembling what went in)

It just gets DENSER (freaky actually) because shit goes in , but it don't check out... thus the density just keeps getting more and more insane. To the point were not only is the matter psychopathicly heavy, things like light waves and radio waves get sucked in due to the insane gravity.

The "engine" of a black hole, that is , the matter your describing, is one kind of Dark Matter.

Its just one of the many different kinds of things that fall under the heading of "dark matter". In this particular case we can see that things cross the event horizon of a black hole, and see gravitational lensing (magnifying glass effect that allows us to see things WAY the fuck farther away than we should be due to black holes bending light)

So we cant actually see the black hole directly, we can only guesstimate about its makeup. Classic "dark matter". Definitely interesting stuff.

[Scary Guy]

double post

[Scary Guy]

Yeah, but no. I'm talking about just dense matter, that doesn't really suck in light, it's just dark. The gravitational pull is great but not that great.

Perhaps I'm confusing it with a black dwarf though.