Published in Physics World, 13 Apr 2015
The largest high-resolution and contiguous map of dark matter in the universe has been unveiled by the Dark Energy Survey. The researchers who created the map say that it demonstrates the potential for a technique based on weak gravitational lensing to be used for studying dark matter and dark energy. Called “cosmic shear”, the technique is now being used to regenerate a full-sized 3D map, which should be completed in 2020.
Dark matter is an invisible entity that appears to interact only through gravity. Physicists believe it accounts for four-fifths of the matter in the universe and, while they have some ideas as to what it could be made of, it has never been detected directly. […]
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