Dark matter makes up about 27 percent of the universe, and its gravitational force is enough to connect entire galaxies together into a structure that resembles a giant cosmic network. Scientists have now created the largest map to date of this mysterious mass. The results are very interesting in that they suggest that there may be large areas in the cosmos where the laws of physics known to us do not apply.
Dark space
Astronomers can map the existence of dark matter by observing light traveling on Earth from distant galaxies. When it is distorted in some inexplicable way, it means that there is some matter between its origin and the Earth that bends light.
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And this is exactly what the international scientific team Dark Energy Survey (DES) is doing, which wants to reveal the essence of both dark matter and dark energy, which should drive the expansion of our universe. Using artificial intelligence, these scientists have created a map of 100 million galaxies – showing a quarter of the sky in the southern hemisphere, one-eighth of the night sky visible from Earth.
What the map shows
The densest regions of dark matter are shown in the brightest colors, corresponding to groups of galaxies. Black spots on the map represent cosmic emptiness, a space without matter and without energy.
Niall Jeffrey of University College London, who led the project, explains: “It shows us new parts of the universe that we have never seen before. We can see this cosmic cobweb structure, including those huge cosmic void structures, which are areas of very low space density where there are very few galaxies and even less matter. “
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Scientists are interested in these structures because they suspect that gravity may behave very differently in them from what we know from ordinary parts of the cosmos. By identifying their shapes and locations, the map can be a starting point for further study.
Was Einstein wrong?
The map also shows how the universe actually evolved after the Big Bang. According to the standard model of cosmology, the universe began with the Big Bang, then expanded, and matter evolved according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes gravity. These gravitational forces are what created the clusters and voids of matter that make up the cosmic network.
Calculations suggest that the distribution of this dark matter on the new map is essentially consistent with the prediction offered by the standard model, but it is not entirely accurate. “The model assumes that dark matter will be more in tufts – but it looks like it’s more evenly distributed,” Jeffrey said.
“It may seem trivial, but if these clues turn out to be true, then it may mean that there is something wrong with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, one of the great pillars of physics,” says the physicist.
How is it possible?
One possible explanation could be that some measurements are not completely correct, said study co-author Ofer Lahav. Or, and this is much more troubling for physicists – there may be a problem with the basic model. “Some people might even say that Einstein may have been wrong,” Lahav said.
Lahav himself does not claim this yet, but because he is a scientist, he is open to all possibilities: “There is something that could indicate disproportion. Let’s work hard, let’s try to understand it by conventional means, but let’s keep our eyes open that it could lead to a revolution in physics. “
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