CDRW
Since: May, 2016
#2: Jul 6th 2012 at 6:54:14 AM
This seems too good to be true. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
KnightofLsama
Since: Sep, 2010
#3: Jul 6th 2012 at 4:54:09 PM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Not really. They've been using lensing and other effects to map dark matter distribution in distant galaxy clusters for quite a while. However the analysis to do this is numerically intensive and it takes time to crunch the numbers.
breadloaf
Since: Oct, 2010
#4: Jul 6th 2012 at 5:11:02 PM
And that's why we got super computers!
This is fairly neat, I wonder if someone could put out an interactive map of dark matter we've observed so far.
Total posts: 4
Wow, this is a great year for physics
.
In brief: the current cosmological theories say that there should be filaments of dark matter connecting galaxy clusters. As dark matter is, well, dark, the only way to observe them would be by measuring their gravitational effects on light rays; but as these effects are very weak, it was thought that it would not have been possible to check this for a while yet.
However, some German astronomers found two galaxy clusters that were especially easy to check, in the sense that
Interestingly, the data had been there for a while, but no one had gotten the right idea:
EDIT: The Nature article
has more details.
edited 6th Jul '12 3:33:20 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.