Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea say they have mapped large concentrations of dark matter with the help of a new instrument.
Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea say they have mapped large concentrations of dark matter with the help of a new instrument.
The nine dark matter formations, each with the mass of a galaxy cluster, were observed in a portion of the night sky near the constellation Cancer, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan announced this week.
They were detected by analyzing the impact of the invisible matter’s gravity on light from distant galaxies with the Hyper Suprime-Cam. Dark matter is believed to be far more common in the universe than visible matter.
The observatory said the early results demonstrate that the widefield camera could be used to explore how dark matter distribution has changed over time and help unravel the mystery of dark energy, another invisible force believed to be responsible for the increasing speed of the universe’s expansion.
“Now we know we have both a technique and a tool for understanding dark energy,” Satoshi Miyazaki, the camera’s lead developer, said in a statement. “We are ready to use Hyper Suprime-Cam to create a 1,000 square degree dark matter map that will reveal the expansion history of the universe with precise detail.”
The 870 million pixel camera was installed at Subaru in 2012 and became operational in March 2014.
The results were published Wednesday in the Astrophysical Journal.