Astronomy with new fields: Dark matter

Astronomers have for the first time drawn a map of dark matter with the widest scale ever observed. Their findings reveal a complex cosmic grid of dark matter and galaxies that span a space of no more than a billion light-years.

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Led by Ludovic Van Waerbeke, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and Catherine Heymans, Edinburgh University, Scotland, the international team has achieved results thanks to image analysis of more than 10 million galaxies over four different airspace. They studied the distortion of light emitted from these galaxies, which had been bent on their way to Earth as they crossed massive blocks of dark matter.

The Photography Survey Project with the Canadian - French - Hawaii Telescope (CFHTLenS) uses data from the Canadian - French - Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Successful Discovery Program. The project focuses on images taken during the 5 years of MegaCam - the camera has a wide range of 340 million pixels, the school looks 1º to 1º, located at the CFHT observatory in Hawaii.

The galaxies surveyed are about 6 billion light-years away. Their light on the image actually flew when the universe was 6 billion years old - about half the age of the universe until now.

The team's results have questioned for a long time, besides computer-based research. It is too difficult to verify, because dark matter is essentially invisible. This is the first and direct view of dark matter on the wide ranges of the cosmic grid from all directions.

'It is interesting to see dark matter by using space-time bending, ' said Van Waerbeke. 'It is a privilege for us to approach the great mystery of the universe that we don't observe. Knowing how dark matter is distributed is the first step towards understanding its nature, and how it fits into the physical knowledge we have. "

'By analyzing the light emitted from the distant universe, we can learn what light has overcome the obstacles on the journey to reach people. We hope to draw more dark matter maps. We are taking a step closer to understanding this matter, and its correlation with galaxies in the universe, " Heyman said.

"This dark matter study demonstrates the strong value of the Discovery Program, which is a success of the CFHT Telescope," said CFHT Executive Director Christian Veillet. Interesting results of groups from many countries, they use images from the Canadian Astronomical Data Center, where they are stored and widely accessible. "

Lance Miller from Oxford University, UK, added: 'This result is due to advances in analytical techniques. We are also applying this technique to data analysis of the VLT Telescope Survey (Huge Telescope) in Chile ".

'In the next 3 years, we will capture a space of 10 times more than the taken CFHTLenS project, helping us get closer to the goal of understanding the mysterious dark part of the universe. " Kuijken share.