Dark Matter

Is Dark Matter the new Black Holes in cosmology?

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A new cosmic map confirms a close relationship between galaxies with supermassive black holes at their centers and the distribution of the invisible dark matter in the early universe.

The new map reveals a close relationship between quasars and dark matter, as predicted from theory.

‘By measuring the clustering of quasars, we can learn about the dark matter halos in which they sit, and we find that they live in these very rare and very massive dark matter halos in the early universe,’ said study team member Michael Strauss of Princeton University.

The new map will be detailed in an upcoming issue of The Astronomical Journal.

Dark matter is a mysterious hypothetical substance that does not interact with light photons and is thus invisible to current detection instruments. Scientists estimate that only about one-sixth of the matter in the universe is visible, while the rest is dark matter.

Current theories predict that matter-both the dark and visible variety-was smoothly distributed in the early universe, and that over time, it became more concentrated.

‘Dark matter halos are a dime a dozen in the present day universe, but in the young universe, they were really quite rare,’ Strauss said.

From 1930’s to about 1970’s there was a big argument between the leading scientists about the existence of black holes until it was finally put to rest by Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and John Wheeler. They (alone and in collaboration) proved the existence of Black Holes based upon Einstein’s theory of gravity which was then confirmed by the existence of Quasars and White Dwarfs and the Hubble telescope which laid the matter to rest by taking breath-taking pictures of blacks holes (actually you cannot take pictures of black holes but rather of the area surrounding the black holes).

And that’s what is happening with Dark matter. There are scientist who support the theory and those who oppose it. But with more and more evidence coming forth on the existence of Dark Matter, the “for” camp is winning.