Astronomers have discovered a phenomenon that is reversing the concept of dark matter in the universe. According to the results obtained by scientists from the National Institute of Astrophysics in Italy, in some galaxies the concentration of dark matter is more than an order of magnitude higher than expected, which indicates either unknown properties of invisible matter or fundamental gaps in knowledge about space. This is reported in an article published in the journal Science.
The researchers carried out observations with the Hubble Space Telescope to find gravitational lenses, a phenomenon that occurs when a massive object bends the path of light. Dark matter also creates gravitational lenses, distorting images of background galaxies. The stronger the distortion, the stronger the gravitational field and the greater the mass that creates it. This allows you to create detailed maps of the distribution of dark matter.
Astronomers have studied 11 galaxy clusters and noticed that something is creating small lensing effects that are not visible at the scale of the entire cluster. This indicates the existence of more dark matter than has been anticipated by the best mathematical models predicting the properties of invisible matter. Researchers do not yet know how to explain this discrepancy.
