39. DARK MATTER PROOF

Hubble sees the graceful dance of two interacting galaxies
30-October-2007 Two galaxies perform an intricate dance in this new Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxies, containing a vast number of stars, swing past each other in a graceful performance choreographed by gravity.A pair of galaxies, known collectively as Arp 87, is one of hundreds of interacting and merging galaxies known in our nearby Universe.
The resolution in the Hubble image shows exquisite detail and fine structure that was not observable when Arp 87 was first catalogued in the 1960ís.
The two main players comprising Arp 87 are NGC 3808 on the right (the larger of the two galaxies) and its companion NGC 3808A on the left. NGC 3808 is a nearly face-on spiral galaxy with a bright ring of star formation and several prominent dust arms. Stars, gas, and dust flow
from NGC 3808, forming an enveloping arm around its companion. NGC 3808A is a spiral galaxy seen edge-on and is surrounded by a rotating ring that contains stars and interstellar gas clouds. The ring is situated perpendicular to the plane of the host galaxy disk and is called a
ìpolar ring.îAs seen in other mergers similar to Arp 87, the corkscrew shape of the tidal material or bridge of shared matter between the two galaxies suggests that some stars and gas drawn from the larger galaxy have been caught in the gravitational pull of the smaller one.
The shapes of both galaxies have been distorted by their gravitational interaction with one another.
(News Release Number: STScl - 2007-36
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

Such collisions gives us the possibility to study the famous, but mysterious "Dark Matter".

Is dark matter really existing?
Yes,it is!
This composite image shows the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, also known as the "bullet cluster." This cluster was formed after the collision of two large clusters of galaxies, the most energetic event known in the universe since the Big Bang.

These observations provide the strongest evidence yet that most of the matter in the universe is dark.
In galaxy clusters, the normal matter, like the atoms that make up the stars, planets, and everything on Earth, is primarily in the form of hot gas and stars. The mass of the hot gas between the galaxies is far greater than the mass of the stars in all of the galaxies. This normal matter is bound in the cluster by the gravity of an even greater mass of dark matter. Without dark matter, which is invisible and can only be detected through its gravity, the fast-moving galaxies and the hot gas would quickly fly apart.

This image is not a real photo, it is a computer simulation. The blue areas in this image show where astronomers find most of the mass in the clusters (mostly dark matter!!). The concentration of mass is determined using the effect of so-called gravitational lensing, where light from the distant objects is distorted by intervening matter. Most of the matter in the clusters (blue) is clearly separate from the normal matter and gaseous clouds (pink), giving direct evidence that nearly all of the matter in the clusters is dark.
The hot gas (pink) 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.
This really is a beautiful proof of the existance of DARK MATTER !!