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Dark Matter - Blog Posts
“The ascension to the tenth level of intellectual heaven would be if we find the question to which the universe is the answer, and the nature of that question in and of itself explains why it was possible to describe it in so many different ways.” - Nima Arkani-Hamed
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/a-different-kind-of-theory-of-everything
Roman’s Five-Year Forecast: A Downpour of Data!
Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope recently passed a major review of the ground system, which will make data from the spacecraft available to scientists and the public.
Since the telescope has a gigantic field of view, it will be able to send us tons of data really quickly — about 500 times faster than our Hubble Space Telescope! That means Roman will send back a flood of new information about the cosmos.
Let’s put it into perspective — if we printed out all of Roman’s data as text, the paper would have to hurtle out of the printer at 40,000 miles per hour (64,000 kilometers per hour) to keep up! At that rate, the stack of papers would tower 330 miles (530 kilometers) high after a single day. By the end of Roman’s five-year primary mission, the stack would extend even farther than the Moon! With all this data, Roman will bring all kinds of cosmic treasures to light, from dark matter and dark energy to distant planets and more!
Learn more about the Roman Space Telescope.
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Wonderous strange! This unusual arrangement in the sky was one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies when it was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999. Officially known to astronomers as NGC 4650A, the polar-rings may be the result of two galaxies colliding. Gas from the smaller galaxy would have been stripped off and captured by the larger galaxy, forming a new ring of dust, gas, and stars, which orbit the inner galaxy almost at right angles to the old disk. In addition to learning about galaxy interaction, astronomers use polar-ring galaxies like this to study dark matter, which does not emit light or interact with normal matter (except through gravity), making it difficult to understand. Both the old, rotating disk and the dark matter surrounding this galaxy pull on its polar ring. The alignment of the ring along the pole of the inner disk's rotation allows scientists to probe this combination of tugs and thus the distribution of dark matter. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI. ALT TEXT: Two galaxies appear to intersect at right angles. Vertically there is a bright column of dust and stars, and horizontally there is a smaller hazy yellow band, brighter at its center, with no discernable stars. In the space around and behind the intersecting forms are smaller stars and distant galaxies colored yellow and red.
Dark matter is one of my favorite mysteries in Astrophysics, oh I would just love to study it. Some are using particle accelerators to try to study DM and figure out what it is - and it’s so so exciting!!!
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I love this meme format
"So, one of the really cool things about black holes that I've been working on recently is using black holes to study another aspect of astrophysics which we don't really understand called dark matter. Dark matter pervades the entire universe. It's probably five, six times more populous than regular matter, and yet we still have no idea what this stuff is.
The only thing we know about dark matter is that it reacts to gravity. And if you really want to push gravity to the extreme, of course the way to do it is with a black hole. So we're trying to understand how dark matter and black holes interact together."
What is the most fascinating thing about black hole research for you, personally?
Ok but honestly HOW IS TUMBLR NOT CRAZY ABOUT DARK MATTER. Also Android is best space mom.
Faint starlight in Hubble images reveals distribution of dark matter
Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have employed a revolutionary method to detect dark matter in galaxy clusters. The method allows astronomers to “see” the distribution of dark matter more accurately than any other method used to date and it could possibly be used to explore the ultimate nature of dark matter. The results were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
In recent decades astronomers have tried to understand the true nature of the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe – dark matter – and to map its distribution in the Universe. Now two astronomers from Australia and Spain have used data from the Frontier Fields programme of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to accurately study the distribution of dark matter.
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Black holes ruled out as universe's missing dark matter
For one brief shining moment after the 2015 detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes, astronomers held out hope that the universe’s mysterious dark matter might consist of a plenitude of black holes sprinkled throughout the universe.
University of California, Berkeley, physicists have dashed those hopes.
Based on a statistical analysis of 740 of the brightest supernovas discovered as of 2014, and the fact that none of them appear to be magnified or brightened by hidden black hole “gravitational lenses,” the researchers concluded that primordial black holes can make up no more than about 40 percent of the dark matter in the universe. Primordial black holes could only have been created within the first milliseconds of the Big Bang as regions of the universe with a concentrated mass tens or hundreds of times that of the sun collapsed into objects a hundred kilometers across.
The results suggest that none of the universe’s dark matter consists of heavy black holes, or any similar object, including massive compact halo objects, so-called MACHOs.
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This astrophysicist is unlocking the secrets of dark matter
by Daryle Lockhart
Nico Cappelluti is an assistant professor in the Physics Department and an astrophysicist at the University of Miami. As such, he studies the sky. He is most intrigued by the cosmic phenomena of supermassive black holes, the nature of dark matter, and the very bright light source found at the center of many galaxies - active galactic nuclei.
Recently, Cappelluti published findings in The Astrophysical Journal entitled, “Searching for the 3.5 keV line in the deep fields with Chandra: the 10 MS observations”. His findings could give insight into a subject astrophysicists have been investigating for decades: What is dark matter and where does it come from?
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(( To finish the after-asks/after-rps (for now,) here we have Tablet in his Form A, the firey knight (updated in my story), having a little sword battle with @squeaking-squad‘s Swordsman!
This took... WAY longer than I was expecting <XD Each of the swordsmen took about a day to draw. The background is just a red, changed version of Tablet’s coliseum, so I’ve had enough practice drawing the setting to make quick use of it.
I actually experimented with the layer effects in Procreate with the rainbow sword, Tablet’s flames, and the sparks between the two blades. It came out really well, I’m so proud!
This may look intense and a balanced fight, but squeaking-squad and I agree that Tablet would likely get his ass kicked in the end. XD))
Here's the gif version of the piece I did of Gooey and Dark matter.
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