For the first time, researchers from the University of Michigan have detected directly, a portion of the invisible dark matter, which is estimated to make up more than eighty percent of the universe.
Even though dark matter is invisible because it does not emit or absorb light, its presence has been detected by the way its gravity influences visible matter. Based on the distribution of galaxies in the universe, scientists have been able to sketch out the shape of the dark matter.
Between a pair of galaxy clusters Abell 222 and Abel 223, scientists were able to detect a filament of dark matter using a phenomenon called gravitational lensing by which massive objects like galaxy clusters bend and distort light from objects further away.
"It looks like there's a bridge that shows that there is additional mass beyond what the clusters contain," said Jorge Dietrich, the first author and a physics fellow, in the University Of Michigan College Of Literature, Science and the Arts. "The clusters alone cannot explain this additional mass," he said.
According to the researchers, there was also an increase in X-ray emissions along the filament, due to the abundance of hot, ionized ordinary matter being pulled by gravity toward the massive filament. The team however estimates 90 percent or more of the filament's mass is dark matter.
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