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Comment Nice visual demonstration that dark matter exists (Score 4, Informative) 223

I would assume this is the Bullet Cluster (1E 0657-56) combined X-ray and weak lensing results that Maxim reported at the Six Years of Science with Chandra Symposium last November. The interesting bit is that in this merging galaxy cluster the hot gas (~ 30%) has collided and been brought to a stop while the dark matter (~ 70%) haloes which are collisionless have passed through each other and are offset from the gas. By plotting the weak lensing image (which shows the total mass) over the X-ray image (which shows the baryons/gas) you can therefore see the existance of dark matter, since the mass is in a totally different place from the gas you can see in the X-ray. This isn't a fundamentally new result but it is a very nice visual demonstration of the existance of dark matter. Rotation curves of galaxies and the temperatures of galaxy clusters had proved it already but with this you don't need to do any maths you can just see it. Page 25 of this 6.5 MB pdf is the one you want for the image.

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