Grey Hautaluoma/Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668/1726
Donna Weaver/Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore
410-338-4493/4514
RELEASE: 07-114
ASTRONOMERS FIND RING OF DARK MATTER WITH HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
WASHINGTON - Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have
discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during
a titanic collision between two galaxy clusters. Dark matter makes up
most of the universe's material. Ordinary matter, which makes up
stars and planets, comprises only a small percent of the universe's
matter. The ring's discovery is among the strongest evidence yet that
dark matter exists.
Astronomers have long suspected the existence of the invisible
substance and theorized that it is the source of additional gravity
that holds galaxy clusters together. Such clusters would fly apart if
they relied only on the gravity from their visible stars. Although
astronomers do not know what composes dark matter, they hypothesize
that it is a type of elementary particle that pervades the universe.
"This is the first time we have detected dark matter as having a
unique structure that is different from both the gas and the galaxies
in the cluster," said astronomer M. James Jee of Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore. Jee is a member of the team that spotted the
dark matter ring.
The ring, which measures 2.6 million light-years across, was found in
the cluster CL0024+17, located 5 billion light-years from Earth. The
team unexpectedly found the ring while it was mapping the
distribution of dark matter within the cluster. Although astronomers
cannot see dark matter, they can infer its existence in galaxy
clusters by observing how its gravity bends the light of more distant
background galaxies. During the team's analysis, they noticed a
ripple in the mysterious substance, somewhat like the ripples created
in a pond from a stone plopping into the water.
Jee said, "Although the invisible matter has been found before in
other galaxy clusters, it has never been detected to be so largely
separated from the hot gas and the galaxies that make up galaxy
clusters. By seeing a dark matter structure that is not traced by
galaxies and hot gas, we can study how it behaves differently from
normal matter."
Jee explained, "I was annoyed when I saw the ring because I thought it
was an artifact, which would have implied a flaw in our data
reduction. I couldn't believe my result. But the more I tried to
remove the ring, the more it showed up. It took more than a year to
convince myself that the ring was real. I have looked at a number of
clusters, and I haven't seen anything like this."
Curious about why the ring was in the cluster and how it had formed,
Jee found previous research that suggested the cluster had collided
with another cluster 1 to 2 billion years ago. The research,
published in 2002 by Oliver Czoske of the Argelander-Institute for
Astronomy at the University of Bonn, was based on spectroscopic
observations of the cluster's three-dimensional structure. The study
revealed two distinct groupings of galaxies clusters, indicating a
collision between two clusters.
Astronomers have a head-on view of the collision because it occurred
along Earth's line of sight. From this perspective, the dark-matter
structure looks like a ring.
The team created simulations showing what happens when galaxy clusters
collide. As the two clusters smash together, the dark matter, as
calculated in the simulations, falls to the center of the combined
cluster and sloshes back out. As the dark matter moves outward, it
begins to slow down under the pull of gravity and pile up, like cars
bunched up on a freeway.
"By studying this collision, we are seeing how dark matter responds to
gravity," said team member Holland Ford, also of Johns Hopkins
University. "Nature is doing an experiment for us that we can't do in
a lab, and it agrees with our theoretical models."
Tracing dark matter is not an easy task because it does not shine or
reflect light. Astronomers can detect its influence only by how its
gravity affects light. To find dark matter, astronomers study how
faint light from more distant galaxies is distorted and smeared into
arcs and streaks by the gravity of the dark matter in a foreground
galaxy cluster. This powerful phenomenon is called gravitational
lensing. By mapping the distorted light, astronomers can deduce the
cluster's mass and trace how dark matter is distributed in the
cluster.
"The collision between the two galaxy clusters created a ripple of
dark matter that left distinct footprints in the shapes of the
background galaxies," Jee explained. "It's like looking at the
pebbles on the bottom of a pond with ripples on the surface. The
pebbles' shapes appear to change as the ripples pass over them. So,
too, the background galaxies behind the ring show coherent changes in
their shapes due to the presence of the dense ring."
Jee and his colleagues used Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys to
look behind the cluster to detect the faint, distorted, faraway
galaxies that cannot be resolved with ground-based telescopes.
"Hubble's exquisite images and unparalleled sensitivity to faint
galaxies make it the only tool for this measurement," said team
member Richard White of the Space Telescope Science Institute in
Baltimore.
Previously, observations of the Bullet Cluster with Hubble and the
Chandra X-ray Observatory presented a sideways view of a similar
encounter between two galaxy clusters. In that collision, the dark
matter was pulled apart from the hot cluster gas, but the dark matter
still followed the distribution of cluster galaxies. CL0024+17 is the
first cluster to show a dark matter distribution that differs from
the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas.
The team's paper has been accepted for publication in the June 1 issue
of Astrophysical Journal.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope
Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute
is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research
in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.
To learn more about the Hubble Space Telescope, including images and
more information about dark matter ring in cluster CL0024+17, visit:
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