Dark matter discovery: Bail me out, guys?

[Math Is Hard]

I went to a cosmology seminar recently. It was mostly for fun,
but if you complete a take home exam you get a tiny bit of college credit for it.
Things were going along fine until I ran across the last two questions:

How was Dark Matter just discovered and when did this happen?

What measurement in 2003 confirmed the Dark Matter evidence?

I can't find any specific references to this in my notes about Dark Matter actually being discovered other than
some information about ongoing experiments for detection being done with liquid xenon.
The lecturer was very good but he was way over my head technically. Could anyone point me to some web links where I can research these questions more? I am turning up zilch on my web searches and I would
really like to take a stab at answering them.


Thanks!

 

[LURCH]

Or try looking at the link in the "Dark Matter Detected? (Oct1 Reprint)" Topic in this very Forum.

 

[chroot]

The answer: the rotation curves of galaxies (the graph of rotation velocity versus radial distance from the center) is not what is expected from the light curve (the graph of luminosity versus radial distance).

It's been known for at least 50 years, but I'm not sure there was a single distinct observation that launched the idea.

- Warren

 

[Nereid]

Dark Matter, 2003 observations

Start here:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=33508

There are also preprints; you should be able to find them easily enough.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Wow - thanks for the direction on this, everybody. I really appreciate it.

 

[Math Is Hard]

p.s. I finally decided the first question was probably a trick. If anybody "discovered" Dark Matter I would think it was Fritz Zwicky when he conjectured about missing mass keeping the galaxies from flying apart.
That might not be the answer they are looking for but it works for me.