NASA’s Hubble reveals a missing ingredient in dark matter theories

Team Udayavani, Sep 15, 2020, 8:16 PM IST

Astronomers claim that there could be a “missing ingredient” in the theories of how dark matter behaves.

According to NASA, they have uncovered a discrepancy between the theoretical models of how dark matter should be distributed in galaxy clusters, and observations of dark matter’s grip on clusters.

Researchers found that small-scale concentrations of dark matter in clusters produce gravitational lensing effects that are 10 times stronger than expected.

As reported by Reuters, The new observations showed that gravitational lensing effects produced by galaxies residing inside the huge galaxy clusters were far stronger than current dark matter theory envisioned, suggesting an unexpectedly large concentration of dark matter in these galaxies.

The study is published in the journal Science and involved observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s VLT in Chile.