3D Dark Matter Map - The Cosmic “Scaffold” of Dark Matter upon which Stars and Galaxies are Assembled.
By analysing the Cosmos survey – the largest ever survey undertaken with Hubble – an international team of scientists has assembled a three-dimensional map that offers a first look at the web-like large-scale distribution of Dark Matter in the Universe. This historic achievement, one of the most important results in Cosmology, accurately confirms standard theories of structure formation.
For astronomers, the challenge of mapping the Universe has been similar to mapping a city from night-time aerial snapshots showing only streetlights. These pick out a few interesting neighbourhoods, but most of the structure of the city remains obscured. Similarly, we see Planets, Stars and Galaxies in the night sky; but these are constructed from ordinary matter, which accounts in total for only one sixth of the total mass in the Universe. The remainder is a mysterious component - Dark Matter - that neither emits nor reflects light.
An international team of astronomers led by Richard Massey, has made a three-dimensional map that offers a first look at the web-like large-scale distribution of Dark Matter in the Universe in unprecedented detail. This new map is equivalent to seeing a city, its suburbs and surrounding country roads in daylight for the first time. Major arteries and intersections are revealed and the variety of different neighbourhoods becomes evident.
Mapping Dark Matter’s distribution in Space and time is fundamental to understanding how Galaxies grew and clustered over billions of years. Tracing the growth of clustering in the Dark Matter may also eventually shed light on Dark Energy, a force which repels matter rather than attracts it as gravity does, which may have influenced how Dark Matter clumps.
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