The discovery, led by a University of Michigan physics researcher, confirms a key prediction in the prevailing theory of how the universe’s current web-like structure evolved.
The map of the known universe shows that most galaxies are organized into clusters, but some galaxies are situated along filaments that connect the clusters. Cosmologists have theorized that dark matter undergirds those filaments, which serve as highways of sorts, guiding galaxies toward the gravitational pull of the massive clusters. Dark matter’s contribution had been predicted with computer simulations, and its shape had been roughed out based on the distribution of the galaxies. But no one had directly detected it until now.
“We found the dark matter filaments. For the first time, we can see them,” said Jörg Dietrich, a physics research fellow in the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Dietrich is first author of a paper on the findings published online in Nature and to appear in the July 12 print edition.
Dark matter, whose composition is still a mystery, doesn’t emit or absorb light, so astronomers can’t see it directly with telescopes. They deduce that it exists based on how its gravity affects visible matter. Scientists estimate that dark matter makes up more than 80 percent of the universe. To “see” the dark matter component of the filament that connects the clusters Abell 222 and 223, Dietrich and his colleagues took advantage of a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
The gravity of massive objects such as galaxy clusters acts as a lens to bend and distort the light from more distant objects as it passes. Dietrich’s team observed tens of thousands of galaxies beyond the supercluster. They were able to determine the extent to which the supercluster distorted galaxies, and with that information, they could plot the gravitational field and the mass of the Abell 222 and 223 clusters. Seeing this for the first time was “exhilarating,” Dietrich said.
“It looks like there’s a bridge that shows that there is additional mass beyond what the clusters contain,” he said. “The clusters alone cannot explain this additional mass,” he said.
Scientists before Dietrich assumed that the gravitational lensing signal would not be strong enough to give away dark matter’s configuration. But Dietrich and his colleagues focused on a peculiar cluster system whose axis is oriented toward Earth, so that the lensing effects could be magnified.
“This result is a verification that for many years was thought to be impossible,” Dietrich said when we spoke with him at a local green coffee shop.
The team also found a spike in X-ray emissions along the filament, due to an excess of hot, ionized ordinary matter being pulled by gravity toward the massive filament, but they estimate that 90 percent or more of the filament’s mass is dark matter.
The researchers used data obtained with the Subaru telescope, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. They also used the XMM-Newton satellite for X-ray observations. This work is funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Other contributors are from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University; Ohio University; Max Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in Germany; The University of Edinburgh and the University of Oxford.
The paper is titled “A filament of dark matter between two clusters of galaxies.” Read the text at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11224.html.
###
A filament of dark matter between two clusters of galaxies
Jörg P. Dietrich, Norbert Werner, Douglas Clowe, Alexis Finoguenov, Tom Kitching, Lance Miller &Aurora Simionescu
- Nature 487, 202–204 (12 July 2012) doi:10.1038/nature11224
- Received 25 January 2012 Accepted 11 May 2012 Published online 04 July 2012
It is a firm prediction of the concordance cold-dark-matter cosmological model that galaxy clusters occur at the intersection of large-scale structure filaments1. The thread-like structure of this ‘cosmic web’ has been traced by galaxy redshift surveys for decades2, 3. More recently, the warm–hot intergalactic medium (a sparse plasma with temperatures…
Alexander Feht says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
Everything is in the end checked with experiments and observations and fail if they don’t match. The paper of this topic is about the observational validation of the equations. Furthermore, mathematics is the language of science. It is very possible that you do not understand mathematics and therefore have a hard time understanding the science. Fortunately there are many physicists that understand the language and can translate it just for you. But your understanding then depends on your willingness [and ability] to listen and make an effort. I see no such effort in your comment.
A quote from Leif Svagaard for most of us to contemplate:
When one contemplates the dismal level of knowledge displayed by most commenters here, one wonders if the often repeated saying that the blogs [and in particular WUWT – the ‘best science blog’] serve as valuable secondary peer-review has any truth to it. No wonder that many sites view WUWT with disdain considering the nonsense most commenters here come up with.
Remind him about it when this latest “first proof” of dark matter’s existence will be disposed of.
“There is no “direct detection” of anything here,”
there is no direct detection of anything anywhere.
pkatt says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Big Bang has become just as much of a religion as Global warming ever was. Challenge it and expect to be insulted…
A successful challenge involves a clear understanding of what is being challenged. And a better explanation of data already collected [or more data]. Once toy have those things you can challenge. Just saying that you don’t believe it is not a challenge. It tells more about you than about the topic.
“At the simplest level, there are only two possible conclusions:
1. With our current understanding of physics, there MUST be a lot more matter (ie mass) in each galaxy than we can currently detect.
2. Or, our understanding of physics (ie gravity) is flawed.”
One “observation” two theories. Note that the observation cant tell you which to decide is true.
Yes. this is actually the fate of all theory since all theory is under determined by the ‘evidence’.
And theory is all we have.
Alexander Feht says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:48 pm
“When one contemplates the dismal level of knowledge displayed by most commenters here, one wonders if the often repeated saying that the blogs [and in particular WUWT – the ‘best science blog’] serve as valuable secondary peer-review has any truth to it. No wonder that many sites view WUWT with disdain considering the nonsense most commenters here come up with.”
Remind him about it when this latest “first proof” of dark matter’s existence will be disposed of.
Your comment proves my point much better than I could have done.
Steven Mosher says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Yes. this is actually the fate of all theory since all theory is under determined by the ‘evidence’.
And theory is all we have.
But many theories are supported by a lot of evidence. Another way to put this: A scientific theory is our understanding [and description] of a large body of evidence. A shorthand, if you will. No theory = no undrstanding.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 11, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Indeed that is what many commenters are doing.
When one reads most of the comments one is struck with the low level of scientific literacy. Modern cosmology is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. There was a time when every generally educated person had a basic understanding of the science of the day. This is no longer the case, or is the problem the level of education?
When one contemplates the dismal level of knowledge displayed by most commenters here, one wonders if the often repeated saying that the blogs [and in particular WUWT – the ‘best science blog’] serve as valuable secondary peer-review has any truth to it. No wonder that many sites view WUWT with disdain considering the nonsense most commenters here come up with. I have referred to the lectures on cosmology given here http://www.leif.org/EOS/Cosmology
Read them and think about what you read, and learn.
===============
Leif,
If you have all the answers, please list them now.
If not, piss off and I’ll work around the loss.
I’m not going anywhere.
Leif,
The first of my comments that you answered to was a quote from Tesla.
The second of my comments that you answered to was a quote from yourself.
You made my day!
Pay attention if you don’t want to make your cat laugh again.
P.S.
I think I am much too polite to you, Leif Svalgaard, after all you have said here.
But I am not Willis Eschenbach, and I will not stoop to your level.
Don’t forget to apologize to “most commenters here” (quoting your own substandard English) when this “Filament of Imagination” shall disappear from the scientific horizon, as many other “proofs” of the Dark Matter did already.
Real answers please. What is this space that can expand, and what does it expand into?
It sounds like these scientist have more closely observed an effect. Many different causes can have a similar effect. We have yet to observe the cause here, our instruments are to crude.
Alexander Feht says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Anna V.,
Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
No matter whose quote it is, is is wrong ( after all I am a scientist and therefore a skeptic) . It might be correct if one started with“Some of today’s scientists . Physics is not a religion and Tesla is not one of its popes.
It is true that many more people are now studying and working in physics, and a lot of them are mathematically inclined and some of them have small contact with data, nevertheless, what Leif said at Leif Svalgaard on July 11, 2012 at 9:48 pm, is true:
Another way to put this: A scientific theory is our understanding [and description] of a large body of evidence. A shorthand, if you will. No theory = no understanding.”
A theory is a descriptive language, a mathematical language. Theorists try to encapsulate all known data within one mathematical framework, those are the physicists among them., and the language can be superseded but not destroyed, because the data are there and are the lynch pin of the structure. Theorists playing with mathematics are just mathematicians.
Steven Mosher says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:51 pm
“There is no “direct detection” of anything here,”
there is no direct detection of anything anywhere.
———————————————————
Silly Mr Mosher,
Senario one… A wave crashes into a sand castle and destroys it. My eyes observe this and deductive reason determines that the wave was the cause of the sandcastles demise.
Senario two… A sandcastle is obliterated right in front of me, by what I cannot see. It just disentgrates. By observing how the sandcastle is destroyed I create one of many posssible theories of what destroyed it.
This post is more like senario two, then senario one.
Sorry Leif, I intended to educate myself from your PDF link but only got a 404 Error,
However, I found this at Thunderbolts.info which has a host of information, but alas, not accepted by concensus astronomers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Certain concepts, like redshift and gravity, are fundamental to the Big Bang hypothesis. According to theory, light shifts toward the red end of the spectrum because an object is moving away. Objects interpreted to be at great distances move away faster than objects nearer to Earth, leading to the idea that the Universe is expanding.
Notwithstanding the problems associated with redshift, previous Picture of the Day articles about WMAP, galaxy clusters, and gravity-only cosmology have elucidated a force extant in the Universe exerting an attractive power 46 orders of magnitude greater than gravity: electric filaments in space. Each “puzzling” discovery by research scientists reinforces the tenets of plasma cosmology and serves to differentiate it from the imprecise predictions of consensus models.
Attractive forces exerted by electrified plasma contained in the twisting filaments of Birkeland currents dominate the Universe. They circulate in a cosmic circuit that flows into our field of view and then out into the void with long-range attraction between them. Therefore, the most probable “Great Attractors” are those filaments of electrified plasma with billions-of-trillion-times more intense fields of influence than gravity.
No doubt the Universe is larger than that which we can observe at this moment: more sensitive tools continue to reveal greater depths. Out of those depths rise inconceivable electrical energies. It is there we should look for explanations and not to centuries-old hypotheses conceived in a time when none of today’s observations were possible.
Stephen Smith ” (from picture of the day archives)
I thought with all of this scientific discussion going on, I might be able to slip my little questions and get a clear answer from a a really well-educated (scientifically), intelligent and nice person.
My questions were (are still) :-
1. Why, after the BB, didn’t the universe stop expanding.
2. Why after the BB, didn’t it even slow down?
3. Why after the BB, is it still accelerating?
3.1 To this last one I’ve had time to think of a corollary, which is:-
As the universe is said to be still accelerating, where is the accelerating energy coming from,
and as it’s said to be accelerating in the face of dark matter,
where is that accelerating energy coming from?
…..but no answer came.
Out there, in the hinterlands of science, among all of those millions on uncounted scientists, surely there must be one, just one, who can answer my simple questions!
Is the dark matter, darker than we thought?
Steven Mosher says: July 11, 2012 at 9:59 pm
….since all theory is under determined by the ‘evidence’.
Hi Steven
I nearly read that as ‘all theory is undermined by the evidence’
Cranks or scientists?
WIMPs or MACHOs?
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay20/eaa-wimps-machos.pdf
On more serious matter:
How is your spectral analysis progressing?
You said there may be some surprises there (cranks are always one step ahead) looking forward to see the results.
I am aghast at the vitriol being hurled at this paper and at those who have provided explanations and links to background information. At least when the “there’s no such thing as back radiation” crowd come out of the woodwork, they in general have explanations to support their opinions that can be discussed with some level of logical discourse. That some proponents of this nonsense continue to believe it even when their most erstwhile arguments have been exposed as illogical and unsupportable is frustrating. But this…. this makes me both sad and angry.
The theory behind the existance of dark matter isn’t hard to understand. The methods and data explained in this paper are not all that exotic and hardly unreasonable, and the researchers have, as I understand it, disclosed both methods and data. If armchair science critics are so certain that it is invalid, then let’s see a logical explanation instead of snide remarks. I’ve seen well founded reasoning and background information from Leif and George and Anna…. and nothing but snide insinuations and innuendo from the detractors. If all you folks have got is mud slinging to back you up, then please, go away.
I’m going to read Leif links and if something doesn’t make sense to me, I’ll post a question. But throwing mud at every science paper that comes out because we’ve been conditioned to accept the worst due to the climate science debacle is of little value to the discussion, and it certainly isn’t science.
davidmhoffer,
you have an interesting way of supporting BB theory. Because the authors disclose their data, methods, and logic it should be respected. Well, why would I respect anyone who simply believes what their boss tells them and works to advance the bosses career to ride his coattails??
Another interesting paper is coming out on red shit:
http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf
Apparently it is being seen and measured with laser driven plasmas. We will see how the Consensus treats that paper and its authors.
I would also point you to work such as this on the serious deficincies in BB theory:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2546
David says:
July 11, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Scenario two… A sandcastle is obliterated right in front of me, by what I cannot see. It just disentgrates. By observing how the sandcastle is destroyed I create one of many posssible theories of what destroyed it.
This post is more like scenario two, then senario one.
One can always reinvent the wheel.
In our civilization we have managed to progress a lot and have a scientific knowledge described by current theories in the language of mathematics that are continually reevaluated against the data.
The time when a falling apple or a brimming bathtub allowed for alternate theories is way past., at least as long as we do not destroy our civilization.
At the moment there are not many possible theories to explain dark matter.
Dark matter is necessary for the prevailing theory, which is General Relativity, and the universe we observe can be described mathematically using elementary particle theories in conjunction with GR.
It is not enough to handwave theories around that might explain dark matter but leave grand holes in the rest of our physics understanding. Any alternate theory has to accommodate all the data, from the particle standard model to the big bang ( as shorthands for data). I do not know of one.
And as for Steven’s comment, in a sense it is true.
We each of us sit in our head and observe the world around us. We know it by proxy par excellence. Have you considered that everything you experience might be a construct of your imagination? 🙂 a grand dream, including this comment?
Steve from Rockwood says:
James, what if the big-bang-theory wasn’t true? Not a hoax. Just not the right answer. What if the universe was 7,324,194 billion years old and we could only “see” 13.7 billion years of it?
Interesting question. The easy answer is to say, I welcome any theory as long as it fits the facts, and is the truth.
The harder answer is to say, well, there is a LOT of evidence for the age of the universe to be rather precisely calculated to 13.75 billion years old. Given the relative proportions of the light elements (hydrogen, helium, deuterium, and lithium) which are in exact agreement with a hot dense state of a big bang, the relative scale of the structures that we can see in the map of the cosmic microwave background radiation (about 300,000 light years across, which corresponds exactly to the age of the universe when it would have to become transparent to radiative fields like gravity (since gravity moves at the speed of light, the largest such structure at the time would be 300,000 light years across)), and the relative proportions of the heavier elements (carbon, oxygen, and so on) which have to be created IN stars, and the even heavier elements (iron on up) that can only be created in super nova explosions, and the known age and sequence of the observable stars, we know with a high degree of precision that the universe is 13.75 billion years old, and the solar system and the earth are around 4.5 billion years old. Any older or younger and there wouldn’t be the same ratio of elements. Then there’s the cosmological constant (or the dark energy of empty space) and the observed expansion rate of the universe. If the dark energy level were lower, the universe would have stopped accelerating (or at least be slowing down), and if it were any higher, things like galaxies and stars and planets, and us, wouldn’t be here. And that the theoretical rate of expansion of a universe with a dark energy level like ours corresponds pretty much exactly to the observed density of space that it would be at the age of 13.75 billion years old.
You see, they came at the question from a number of different experimental angles, and the answer always comes out the same…
So, any competing theory has to take into account all of these observations and make sense of them all. That’s one of the wonderful things about Cosmology… every experiment seems poised to tear the theoretical underpinnings of the science apart. This isn’t mathematical navel gazing… we built a 17 mile diameter particle collider — the most complex thing mankind has ever built — just to look for the particle that is the force carrier of the Higgs field, a thing which you might not even believe exists. And if they don’t 100% confirm that they’ve found it, they get to shred the Standard Model and have to come up with something better. I love that kind of science.
James,
do you have ANY idea the number of ASSUMPTIONS you had to make to write your seemingly detailed explanation of the age of the universe and how it works?? It is really baffling how people can be so convinced by details based on imagination.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 11, 2012 at 9:57 pm
It tells more about you than about the topic.
You know very little of me except that I think you are often full of it and subject to fits of hubris. I on the other hand have been reading solarcycle 24 for years as well as WUWT and know what a bully you can be if anyone dares to go against your organized scientific religion. I cannot wait for the day you are proven wrong, but I doubt you will have the grace or humility to admit you were wrong. You are just another consensus driven scientist and quite frankly, I do not have the time, nor do I intend to put in the effort to argue with you. Live in your bubble, whether it be Earth’s, the solar systems, the galaxy’s or the one you deny for the universe. The Voyager probes are leaving our lovely bubble, lets see if they run into your expanding space or dark matter.. I’m betting they wont. Until then, you keep using your strawman arguments and argumentum ad hominem tactics because the more you do it, the more people will see you for what you really are.
On another note, just about every month a new story appears that challenges the consensus and standard cosmological simulations.. Take this one for example: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/19/full/ .. and I quote “The trouble is, the arc shouldn’t exist.” .. But there it is. So yes, it ticks me off to no end when I hear that old tired mantra of settled science.
Steven Mosher says: July 11, 2012 at 9:59 pm
I believe we are in agreement then, Steve?
We don’t demand that discussion and publication must exclusively be on the basis of someone’s special definition of hard, physical evidence, do we?
Anna V,
Good scientists fit theories to facts. If a theory doesn’t fit a single well-known fact, it is worth nothing. There are many well-known facts contradicting the Big Bang theory, and not a single confirmed, unequivocal fact confirming the existence of the “dark matter.”
Postmodern “consensus scientists” search for facts that fit the theories that feed them (or invent them), ignoring facts that contradict them. Hence “filaments of dark matter,” which are much more far-fetched than Martian canals. You seem to be comfortable in this company of conformists.
I’d prefer to be in Tesla’s company. Alas, he is dead — he died a pauper, betrayed by America and the whole world, the same world that owes him its very survival.
I don’t think you deserve uttering his name.
It used to be called “missing matter”, but the grants dried up and then they invented “dark matter”.
‘Einstein’s Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe (2009)’ by Evalyn Gates describes the gravitational lensing method as a tool she and her fellow researchers had been using for some time, apparently very effectively. As you may see from the publication date, three years before the paper now being greeted with either huzzas or raspberries; the method was used to get a reasonable map of dark matter.
I’m shocked at how dumb most of the comments here have been, or have displayed fruitcake thinking. I always read WUWT and have agreed with most of the comments on so-called Climate Change’, regarding myself as a sceptic. Now, though, I shall be careful about accepting what is posted here on climate if the postings on dark matter are the true standard of intelligence of posters.
You simply cannot say ‘Oh, but they are all ‘scientists’ and so just as lying and evil as ‘climate scientists”. That is the old anti egg head prejudice, as bad as racism, rearing up yet again. I used to read loads of science fiction books where the stupid red necks rose up and exterminated the egg head scientists because they were blamed for everything bad that had ever happened, due to their ‘meddling with Nature’. Many of the comments here read like what you might hear from someone having a distinctly puce neck…
I have a mere Ph.D in Psychology so I freely admit to not having specialised expertise in astrophysics or cosmology but, as might be expected, I know a fair bit about people. In addition, I taught research methods for twenty years and had to batter out of the brains of thousands of young people similar misapprehensions about science as have been show here. If you catch them young enough they can be saved!