By observing a rare head-on collision of galaxies at 10 million miles per hour, astronomers have made the first direct detection of “dark matter”–the mysterious, invisible stuff that comprises at least one-quarter of the universe.
Here is the entire news post on the National Science Foundation website about this discovery, that will be soon published on the forthcoming issues of the Astrophysical Journal and Astrophysical Journal Letters.
If you don’t want to read the whole story, just take a look at the picture. Images like these (just like Hubble deep field ones) always amuse me in a sort of magical way.
Actually, I’d like to read something more about this topic: I’ll take my time to search the internet for something else about it.
Oh, the fun thing about it, is that I found the link to the news in the newsgroup alt.geek (in particular: here).
Gosh, I love internet!
That is interesting, I never realized Dark Matter was invisible… The only real reference I had seen was from a Fututrama episode so what can I expect… Anyways that is cool stuff.
I remember that Futurama episode. Indeed: Futurama rocks, so probably scientists will discover that what we’ve seen there is in realty the truth! :D
Dark matter is really an intriguing topic:
That almost seems more science-fiction than science. My Star Trek geek side giggles! ^__^