{"id":5905,"date":"2015-02-24T19:24:06","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T19:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/vast-galactic-collisions-create-dark-matter-laboratory"},"modified":"2015-02-24T14:33:48","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T19:33:48","slug":"vast-galactic-collisions-create-dark-matter-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themindpowertimes.com\/?p=5905","title":{"rendered":"Vast Galactic Collisions Create Dark Matter Laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/sites\/www.iflscience.com\/files\/styles\/ifls_large\/public\/blog\/%5Bnid%5D\/54b9194c4a51c.jpg?itok=pmN-c73-\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"425\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A tightly bunched collection of galaxies has been observed entering a galactic cluster at a speed of more than 4.7 million kilometers per\u00a0hour (2.9 million miles\/hour). Only the second time such an event has been observed, astronomers hope it will prove as rich a guide to <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/could-scientists-have-finally-detected-dark-matter-signal');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/could-scientists-have-finally-detected-dark-matter-signal\">dark matter<\/a>\u00a0as the first.<\/p>\n<p>The small group of galaxies is passing through the middle of\u00a0RXCJ2359.3-6042,\u00a0a galaxy cluster\u00a0also known as\u00a0Abell 4067, which is\u00a0located 1.4 billion light-years away. Dr. Gayoung Chon of the Max Plank Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics observed the galactic collision with the<a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/sci.esa.int\/xmm-newton\/');\"  href=\"http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/xmm-newton\/\"> X-ray Multi-Mirror Newton space telescope<\/a>.\u00a0His paper, to be published in <em>Astronomy and Astrophysics<\/em>, is available in\u00a0draft form on <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/1501.02371v1.pdf');\"  href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/1501.02371v1.pdf\">arXiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The sheer scale of the interactions occurring here are mind-bending. Chon estimates Abell 4067 to be 2.1 x 10<sup>14<\/sup> times the mass of the sun, or almost a 100 times that of the <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/mnras.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/443\/3\/2204');\"  href=\"http:\/\/mnras.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/443\/3\/2204\">local group in which the Milky Way resides<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As the paper notes, \u201cMerging galaxy clusters have been found to be interesting laboratories for the study of a variety of astrophysical processes.\u201d Such mergers occur in many ways depending on the mass ratios and shapes of the galaxies involved. A study of 108 clusters revealed what the paper describes as \u201ca special merger configuration that has never been observed in this form before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The incoming galaxies are described as a \u201ccompact bullet\u201d because of their density and speed. Meanwhile, Abell 4067 is a diffuse cluster without much density at its core.\u00a0The only comparable known case is 1E 0657-558, also known as the Bullet Cluster. 1E 0657-558 has been a <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/www.nasa.gov\/vision\/universe\/starsgalaxies\/dark_matter_proven.html');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/vision\/universe\/starsgalaxies\/dark_matter_proven.html\">hugely valuable find for astronomers<\/a>,\u00a0providing confirmation for the theorized, but previously unwitnessed,\u00a0<a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0920563207006391');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0920563207006391\">existence of dark matter<\/a>.\u00a0Moreover, observations from it support\u00a0suggestions that dark matter lies in a <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/arxiv.org\/abs\/astro-ph\/0702568');\"  href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/astro-ph\/0702568\">ring around the visible parts of galaxies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, while the relative speeds observed in Abell 4067 are enormous, they are low compared to those seen in the Bullet Cluster. As a consequence, Chon has been able to detect a clear trail of debris,\u00a0which might have been disturbed by a more violent encounter.<\/p>\n<p>The outer layers of the impacting\u00a0galaxies\u00a0are being stripped away by the gravity of Abell 4067, and the way this is happening could tell us a lot about the distribution of dark matter in the two objects. It appears that Abell 4067 has been relatively inactive for quite a while, further simplifying the interactions between it and the incoming group of galaxies.<\/p>\n<p>Chon believes that further study of the interaction will allow us to estimate the mass of the colliding\u00a0set of galaxies, as well as\u00a0how much gas has been left in a trail behind the smaller bunch. More generally,\u00a0extra telescope time trained on Abell 4067 could tell us a lot about the way groups of galaxies interact\u00a0and provide more detail on how dark matter is distributed within them.<\/p>\n<p>Read more: <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/vast-galactic-collisions-create-dark-matter-laboratory');\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/vast-galactic-collisions-create-dark-matter-laboratory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/vast-galactic-collisions-create-dark-matter-laboratory<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tightly bunched collection of galaxies has been observed entering a galactic cluster at a speed of more than 4.7 million kilometers per\u00a0hour (2.9 million miles\/hour). Only the second time such an event has been observed, astronomers hope it will prove as rich a guide to dark matter\u00a0as the first. The small group of galaxies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[505,509,507,508,506],"class_list":["post-5905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abell-4067","tag-cluster","tag-collision","tag-dark-matter","tag-galaxies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vast Galactic Collisions Create Dark Matter Laboratory - The Mind Power Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/themindpowertimes.com\/?p=5905\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/themindpowertimes.com\/?p=5905\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/themindpowertimes.com\/?p=5905\",\"name\":\"Vast Galactic Collisions Create Dark Matter Laboratory - 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