Hubble looks at dark matter

[duncan]

Hi all,
Check out this wonderful shot by Hubble & count the galaxies!!!!!
This reportedly shows a ring of Dark Matter caused by ancient colliding Galaxies.
Cheers,
Duncan

[Kal]

I read the article about this at the smh (http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/cosmic-crash-leaves-dark-ring/2007/05/16/1178995195573.html) website and I couldn't make sense of the picture. The article stated "Although invisible, its gravity is so strong it distorted light from even more distant background galaxies, producing the ring effect detected by the Hubble telescope." meaning that all that blue luminence that you see in the picture (with the supposed dark matter ring in it) is apparently light from even further distant galaxies, which makes no sense to me - I've never seen hubble pictures with a blue glow in them from the light from distant galaxies.....

[RB]

Even though I can't fully comprehend it all, it's still a magnificent image which captures the gist of just how massive and mysterious the universe really is.

Thanks for sharing Duncan.

[glenc]

There is also an article on the ABC about dark matter in ZwC10024+1652 .
Astronomers discover 'dark matter ring'
International astronomers say they have found the strongest evidence yet of the existence of the mysterious substance known as dark matter. Scientists believe invisible dark matter accounts for 90 per cent of the universe's mass and holds together galaxy clusters. Otherwise, galaxies would only have the gravity from their visible stars, which would not be enough to keep them from flying apart. A NASA team using the Hubble Space Telescope has now detected what it describes as a ghostly ring of dark matter around a cluster of galaxies 5 billion light years away...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1924778.htm

[robagar]

That image (though very pretty) is rather misleading. The blue ring is the inferred dark matter distribution superimposed on a visual image of the cluster.

The dark matter is indeed dark :)

Full details about the image here (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/17/image/a/).

[sheeny]

Thanks for posting guys!

Al.

[Kal]

I knew it didn't make sense! Thanks for that link :thumbsup:

[ballaratdragons]

Oooooo, I'd love to get a Galaxy Cluster image like that!!!!

Somehow I don't think the Toucam is quite upto it :lol:

But I'm trying :P

[OneOfOne]

Funny, my wife says the same thing:lol:

[sheeny]

This was in the news @ nature this morning:

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070514/full/070514-6.html

Al.