background preloader

Énergie sombre

Facebook Twitter

Google. Dark-Matter Galaxy Detected: Hidden Dwarf Lurks Nearby? Richard A. Lovett in Seattle, Washington An entire galaxy may be lurking, unseen, just outside our own, scientists announced Thursday. The invisibility of "Galaxy X"—as the purported body has been dubbed—may be due less to its apparent status as a dwarf galaxy than to its murky location and its overwhelming amount of dark matter, astronomer Sukanya Chakrabarti speculates.

Dark Energy - Did Einstein Predict Dark Energy? Albert Einstein, 1947.

Dark Energy - Did Einstein Predict Dark Energy?

Einstein used his "cosmological constant" to help describe a static universe. When he learned the universe was expanding, he discarded it. Dark Energy - What Is Dark Energy? So what is dark energy?

Dark Energy - What Is Dark Energy?

Well, the simple answer is that we don't know. It seems to contradict many of our understandings about the way the universe works. We all know that light waves, also called radiation, carry energy. You feel that energy the moment you step outside on a hot summer day. Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2, teaches us that matter and energy are interchangeable, merely different forms of the same thing. Something from Nothing. Dark Energy - Fate of the Universe.

Gravity always pulls matter together.

Dark Energy - Fate of the Universe

The baseball moves too slowly and gets pulled back to Earth. The spaceship moves fast enough to escape Earth, but it never escapes gravity entirely. Energie Libre. Dark Matter 2. Dark Universe / Transient Universe | Outer Solar System | Near Earth Objects | Milky Way | LSST Tour Dark Matter | Dark Energy | 3D mass Illustration of strong gravitaional lensing.

Dark Matter 2

Click for full-size image. Strong gravitational lensing happens when there is so much mass contrast in the lens that the light rays from a distant source bend around both sides of the lens and cross near Earth. Then multiple images of the source may be seen. Clicking on each image below will bring up MPEG movies (800 kB) showing the evolution of the distortion as the clusters move against the background over half billion years. Two simulations of strong lensing by a massive cluster of galaxies. Biology's 'dark matter' hints at fourth domain of life - life - 18 March 2011. Read more: Click here to read the updated version of this story Step far enough back from the tree of life and it begins to look quite simple.

Biology's 'dark matter' hints at fourth domain of life - life - 18 March 2011

At its heart are just three stout branches, representing the three domains of life: bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. But that's too simple, according to a band of biologists who believe we may be on the verge of discovering the fourth domain of life. The bold statement is the result of an analysis of water samples collected from the world's seas. Jonathan Eisen at the University of California, Davis, Genome Center has identified gene sequences hidden within these samples that are so unusual they seem to have come from organisms that are only distantly related to cellular life as we know it. Dark Matter - Introduction. Dark matter. Martin White: Dark Matter. We believe that most of the matter in the universe is dark, i.e. cannot be detected from the light which it emits (or fails to emit).

Martin White: Dark Matter

This is "stuff" which cannot be seen directly -- so what makes us think that it exists at all? Its presence is inferred indirectly from the motions of astronomical objects, specifically stellar, galactic, and galaxy cluster/supercluster observations. It is also required in order to enable gravity to amplify the small fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background enough to form the large-scale structures that we see in the universe today. For each of the stellar, galactic, and galaxy cluster/supercluster observations the basic principle is that if we measure velocities in some region, then there has to be enough mass there for gravity to stop all the objects flying apart.

When such velocity measurements are done on large scales, it turns out that the amount of inferred mass is much more than can be explained by the luminous stuff. For more information. How Dark Matter Works" In the 1978 follow-up album to "Born to Run," Bruce Springsteen uses darkness on the edge of town as a metaphor for the desolate unknown we all face as we grow up and try to understand the world.

How Dark Matter Works"

Cosmologists working to decipher the origin and fate of the universe must identify completely with The Boss' sense of tragic yearning. These stargazing scientists have been facing their own darkness on the edge of town (or on the edge of galaxies) for a long time as they try to explain one of astronomy's greatest mysteries. It's known as dark matter, which is itself a placeholder – like the x or y used in algebra class – for something unknown and heretofore unseen. One day, it will enjoy a new name, but today we're stuck with the temporary label and its connotations of shadowy uncertainty. Just because scientists don't know what to call dark matter doesn't mean they don't know anything about it. Dark Matter. Dark Matter. There are many reasons to believe that the universe is full of "dark matter", matter that influences the evolution of the universe gravitationally, but is not seen directly in our present observations.

Dark Matter

FIGURE: Superposed on an optical picture of a group of galaxies is an X-ray image taken by ROSAT. The image shows hot gas (which produces X-rays) highlighted in false red color (Ref). Dark Matter. Dark Matter.