Scientists may have figured out a way to make James Webb 'see' dark matter, allowing us to map out its distribution like never before.
biggest mysteries of the universe
. We’re pretty sure it exists, in fact, we’re pretty sure that it makes up a large majority of our universe. But we’ve never been able to see dark matter ourselves. That may change soon, though, as a trick with theWhen looking at things from an astrophysical standpoint, the effects of dark matter can be seen everywhere, from the way that galaxies rotate to the way light distorts around massive galaxies with gravitational lensing.
What makes this new technique so intriguing, though, is that it allows Webb to basically trace the distribution of dark matter. It uses a system known as intracluster light – which is basically when stars and tidal streams are stripped from within galaxies in clusters. These stars continue to shine, but they do so from the intracluster medium – a space between galaxies.
Scientists have previously used Hubble to check for intracluster light, and now, they’re doing it with Webb, as well. But what makes James Webb’s search for dark matter so promising is the sheer power of the telescope, and its ability to peer deeper into the universe than any other man-made telescope we’ve made thus far.essentially lets us trace out dark matter and map it out in ways that have never been possible before.
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