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hubble's photos of regular matter and dark matter
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 4:52 am
by kovil
the Hubble website has an article about dark matter and photo maps of what they think is its distribution in relationship to regular matter. What are they actually seeing tho, that is the question to me, as I am not a dark matter fan. I think many would like to read about this and see the photos, regardless of whether they are a fan of DM or not. It is a 1-7-07 article and so very recent.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubbl ... atter.html
DE and DM have been hot topics the last year !
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:14 pm
by JohnD
kovil,
The aratcile is almost as obscure as dark matter itself!
But it does say,"The dark matter map was constructed by measuring the shapes of half a million faraway galaxies.
To reach Hubble, their light has had to travel through intervening dark matter, and the path of the light is slightly deflected by the dark matter’s gravity. The observed, subtle distortion of the galaxies’ shapes was used to reconstruct the distribution of intervening mass along Hubble’s line of sight – a method called weak gravitational lensing. "
Does that make sense to you?
I can see the idea, but I have to say that it is a bit like describing colour to the blind.
John
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:14 pm
by JohnD
JohnD wrote:kovil,
The article is almost as obscure as dark matter itself!
But it does say,"The dark matter map was constructed by measuring the shapes of half a million faraway galaxies.
To reach Hubble, their light has had to travel through intervening dark matter, and the path of the light is slightly deflected by the dark matter’s gravity. The observed, subtle distortion of the galaxies’ shapes was used to reconstruct the distribution of intervening mass along Hubble’s line of sight – a method called weak gravitational lensing. "
Does that make sense to you?
I can see the idea, but I have to say that it is a bit like describing colour to the blind.
John
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:13 am
by makc
QFE?