{"id":34862,"date":"2025-07-03T08:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T08:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/34862\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T08:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T08:47:09","slug":"webb-and-chandra-image-of-bullet-cluster-maps-invisible-dark-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/34862\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb and Chandra Image of Bullet Cluster Maps Invisible Dark Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A\u2018This is the central region of the Bullet Cluster, which is made up of two massive galaxy clusters. The vast number of galaxies and foreground stars in the image were captured by NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope in near-infrared light. Glowing, hot X-rays captured by NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory appear in pink. The blue represents the dark matter, which was precisely mapped by researchers with Webb\u2019s detailed imaging. Normally, gas, dust, stars, and dark matter are combined into galaxies, even when they are gravitationally bound within larger groups known as galaxy clusters. The Bullet Cluster is unusual in that the intracluster gas and dark matter are separated, offering further evidence in support of dark matter. (See the defined galaxy clusters within the dashed circle<\/a>.\u2019 | Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CXC; Science: James Jee (Yonsei University\/UC Davis), Sangjun Cha (Yonsei University), Kyle Finner (IPAC at Caltech) <\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Observatory<\/a> combined their efforts to look at the Bullet Cluster in a new way<\/a>, enabling scientists to precisely map the cluster\u2019s dark matter. <\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s near-infrared imaging capabilities enabled astronomers to capture the highest detailed images yet of the Bullet Cluster, which comprises a pair of massive galaxy clusters. With Webb\u2019s highly sensitive cameras, researchers can see fainter, more distant galaxies in the Bullet Cluster than ever before. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith Webb\u2019s observations, we carefully measured the mass of the Bullet Cluster with the largest lensing dataset to date, from the galaxy clusters\u2019 cores all the way out to their outskirts,\u201d says Sangjun Cha, the lead author on a new research paper published<\/a> this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Cha is a PhD student at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. <\/p>\n

\u201cWebb\u2019s images dramatically improve what we can measure in this scene \u2014 including pinpointing the position of invisible particles known as dark matter,\u201d adds Kyle Finner, a co-author of the new research paper and an assistant scientist at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California. <\/p>\n

As NASA explains, \u201call galaxies are made up of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter, which are bound together by gravity.\u201d The Bullet Cluster is not just a galaxy, but a grouping of two \u201cvery massive collections of galaxies.\u201d <\/p>\n

The galaxy clusters, which are massive and therefore have powerful gravitational forces, can act as gravitational lenses that significantly magnify the light of background galaxies. The amount of gravitational lensing, when compared against the amount of visible mass in a cluster, enables scientists to infer the distribution of invisible dark matter. <\/p>\n

\"ABullet Cluster \u2014 NIRCam image <\/p>\n

\u201cGravitational lensing allows us to infer the distribution of dark matter,\u201d says co-author James Jee, professor at Yonsei University and research associate at UC Davis in California. <\/p>\n

It is helpful to think about gravitational lensing and dark matter using a metaphor of a pond filled with crystal-clear water and pebbles, Jee says. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot see the water unless there is wind, which causes ripples,\u201d the scientist explains. \u201cThose ripples distort the shapes of the pebbles below, causing the water to act like a lens.\u201d This same phenomenon occurs in space, where the water represents dark matter, and the pebbles in the example represent background galaxies. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

With Webb\u2019s imaging capabilities, it is much easier to see and measure the galaxies, including the background ones, meaning it is possible to weigh both visible and invisible matter (dark matter) in the galaxy clusters. The researchers also mapped and measured the collective light emitted by intracluster stars. These are stars that are no longer bound to an individual galaxy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe confirmed that the intracluster light can be a reliable tracer of dark matter, even in a highly dynamic environment like the Bullet Cluster,\u201d Cha says. If intracluster stars are not bound to galaxies, and instead are bound to dark matter, scientists could learn much more about dark matter and its distribution. <\/p>\n

Image credits:<\/strong> NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CXC; Science: James Jee (Yonsei University\/UC Davis), Sangjun Cha (Yonsei University), Kyle Finner (IPAC at Caltech). Video credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph DePasquale (STScI) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018This is the central region of the Bullet Cluster, which is made up of two massive galaxy clusters.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[28869,28870,28871,28872,26989,25024,159,783,67,132,68,26995],"class_list":{"0":"post-34862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-bulletcluster","9":"tag-chandraxrayobservatory","10":"tag-cluster","11":"tag-galaxycluster","12":"tag-jameswebbspacetelescope","13":"tag-jwst","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-webb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114788437333631555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}