dark matter billions of years ago it was finally discovered by scientists on Earth.
Researchers have been able to study the nature of the dark matter surrounding galaxies as it was 12 billion years ago. This is billions of years earlier than we could see before.
Scientists hope the breakthrough findings could unlock the secrets of the still-mysterious dark matter that makes up a significant portion of our universe but is largely unknown.
It has already provided tantalizing clues about the history of our space. The findings suggest that the fundamental rules of the universe were different in the earliest times, the researchers say.
As the name suggests, scientists cannot see dark matter directly because it does not emit light. Instead, scientists usually watch how the light moves in the galaxies they want to study, measuring how it moves—the more it’s distorted, the more dark matter there is.
However, the most distant galaxies that we see existed billions of years ago are too faint for this technique to work. The distortion cannot be properly detected and dark matter remains impossible to analyze.
This has prevented scientists from studying dark matter from more than 10 billion years ago. The time before that and the beginning of the universe, that is, 13.7 billion years ago, remained impossible to understand.
Now, scientists say they’ve solved the problem by using a different source: microwaves released by the Big Bang. The team measured how these microwaves were distorted rather than light, and by looking at galaxies right after they were formed, they were able to see dark matter from the dawn of space.
“Most researchers use source galaxies to measure the distribution of dark matter from the present to eight billion years ago,” added Yuichi Harikane, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Cosmic Ray Studies. “However, we were able to look further into the past because we used the more distant CMB to measure dark matter. “For the first time, we measured dark matter from almost the earliest moments of the universe.”
The results revealed a number of surprises, including showing how dark matter accumulated in the early universe. The theory suggests that dark matter sticks together and forms clumps in space – but much less than predicted.
“Our finding is still inconclusive,” said Hironao Miyatake of Nagoya University, who led the team. “But if that’s true, when you go back in time, it shows that the whole model is flawed. “This is exciting because if the result holds after the uncertainties are reduced, it could suggest an improvement to the model that could provide insight into the nature of dark matter itself.”
A paper describing the findings is published Physical review letters.
