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NASA has found proof that dark matter indeed exists. Using CHANDRA and watching a galaxy called 1E0657-56, scientists found that hot gas was not the most massive thing. It was dark matter.
NASA has found proof that dark matter indeed exists. Using CHANDRA and watching a galaxy called 1E0657-56, scientists found that hot gas was not the most massive thing. It was dark matter.
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In addition to the Chandra observation, the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the Magellan optical telescopes were used to determine the location of the mass in the clusters. This was done by measuring the effect of gravitational lensing, where gravity from the clusters distorts light from background galaxies as predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. The hot gas in this collision was slowed by a drag force, similar to air resistance. In contrast, the dark matter was not slowed by the impact, because it does not interact directly with itself or the gas except through gravity. This produced the separation of the dark and normal matter seen in the data. If hot gas was the most massive component in the clusters, as proposed by alternative gravity theories, such a separation would not have been seen. Instead, dark matter is required.