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rhody
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From National Geographic: Daily News, by John Roach, March 22, 2010
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100322-dark-flow-matter-outside-universe-multiverse/"
As if Dark Matter and Dark Energy aren't weird enough, now it seems we have verified proof of "Dark Flow".
From the article:
I have a layman's question for you astrophysicist's out there, is this behavior possible because of increased accuracy or simply a larger sample in the WMAP data as reported ?
Second, are there areas that attract large sections of our Universe in addition to the one observed, and in different directions ?
As always, thanks in advance...
Rhody...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100322-dark-flow-matter-outside-universe-multiverse/"
As if Dark Matter and Dark Energy aren't weird enough, now it seems we have verified proof of "Dark Flow".
From the article:
andDark flow" is no fluke, suggests a new study that strengthens the case for unknown, unseen "structures" lurking on the outskirts of creation.
In 2008 scientists reported the discovery of hundreds of galaxy clusters streaming in the same direction at more than 2.2 million miles (3.6 million kilometers) an hour.
This mysterious motion can't be explained by current models for distribution of mass in the universe. So the researchers made the controversial suggestion that the clusters are being tugged on by the gravity of matter outside the known universe.
Now the same team has found that the dark flow extends even deeper into the universe than previously reported: out to at least 2.5 billion light-years from Earth.
After using two additional years' worth of data and tracking twice the number of galaxy clusters, "we clearly see the flow, we clearly see it pointing in the same direction," said study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
But the clusters are also moving relative to the background radiation, so the scattered light gets distorted further by the Doppler effect. This distortion appears in the form of temperature shifts in WMAP data, which can reveal the clusters' direction and speed.
"It is very difficult to isolate [the temperature change] for each individual cluster," Kashlinsky said, so the original study had examined 700 clusters.
The new study is based on the collective motion of about 1,400 galaxy clusters, and seeing dark flow with the greater number of clusters gives the researchers more confidence in their result.
I have a layman's question for you astrophysicist's out there, is this behavior possible because of increased accuracy or simply a larger sample in the WMAP data as reported ?
Second, are there areas that attract large sections of our Universe in addition to the one observed, and in different directions ?
As always, thanks in advance...
Rhody...
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