Tag Archives: dark matter

An invisible cosmic bridge

By Stephen Ornes / July 23, 2012
It’s impossible to see with the naked eye, but astronomers say a bridge made of dark matter connects two galaxy clusters. This picture shows hot gas around and between the two clusters, Abell 222 (blob at top) and Abell 223 (bottom blob). The yellow is the hottest part of the gas, where the galaxies reside, and the red is cooler. Credit: ESA/ XMM-Newton/ EPIC/ ESO (J. Dietrich)/ SRON (N. Werner)/ MPE (A. Finoguenov)

Astronomers find strange stuff in the space between two clusters of galaxies

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Dark matter search turns up empty

By Stephen Ornes / May 8, 2012
A blue cloud of dark, or invisible, matter surrounds the swirl of the Milky Way galaxy in this illustration. A new study suggests our galaxy’s dark matter may have a shape other than a sphere. Credit: L. Calçada/ESO

Star study suggests our cosmic neighborhood may be lacking invisible matter

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The dark side of the universe

By Stephen Ornes / April 26, 2011
The ghostly blue clouds in the center of the Abell 1689 galaxy cluster show where Dan Coe and his team think dark matter is hiding. Abell 1689 is home to about 1,000 galaxies and trillions of stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Dan Coe (NASA JPL/Caltech and STScI)

Most of the cosmos is invisible, but that doesn’t stop scientists from searching for it

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Strange Universe: The Stuff of Darkness

By Emily Sohn / February 9, 2004

Figuring out what’s hidden in outer space between the visible stars and galaxies isn’t easy.

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