We can’t even see dark matter, but that’s proved no obstacle in compiling the first ever 3D map showing its distribution in the universe.
Using gravitational lensing – the bending of light from distant galaxies by the gravity of intervening matter – an international team mapped out the dark matter stretching halfway back to the birth of the universe. Data from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), led by Nick Scoville of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, played a starring role. COSMOS studied a wide swathe of the sky, equal to nine times the area of…
