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NASA / ESA / STScI
Light from galaxies in the cluster Abell 1689 is distorted by dark matter in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The distortions allow scientists to infer the presence of invisible dark matter.
The universe has a dark side, and an international team of astronomers is calling on scientists and computer geeks of all stripes to help them understand it better.
The call is to participate in a competition called GREAT10 (for GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing) to help them analyze images of galaxies whose shape is distorted by the presence of dark matter.
Stars, galaxies, and other visible stuff in the universe only make up a tiny fraction of what's out there. The rest consists of the more mysterious dark matter and dark energy.
Scientists infer the presence of dark matter by the way it distorts the light of distant galaxies that pass through it on the way to observers. A circular galaxy, for example, may appear elliptical ... or even as curved as a fingernail clipping. The technique, called gravitational lensing, allowed scientists to infer the presence of dark matter in the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689, as mapped in the image above.
But dark matter doesn't distort all galaxies equally. Unlike the obvious distortions in the Hubble image, the effect is often "so small that you can't really see it by the eye," challenge organizer Thomas Kitching from the University of Edinburgh told me. "So we need to do it statistically."
Astronomers want to measure this lensing effect in 52 million galaxies. An additional layer of complexity arises from the blurring of images due to other distortions from the atmosphere and the telescopes themselves.
"The challenge is to undo the blurring effect of the atmosphere and the telescopes, and get back to measuring the very slight distortion. And if algorithms and software can be developed to measure that, it then means we can directly use those algorithms to map out the dark matter," Kitching said.
The scientists ultimately hope to map out dark matter in the universe as a function of time. That would let them see how the structure of dark matter has changed as the expansion of the universe has accelerated due to an effect of another dark force -– dark energy. Astronomical observations suggest that ordinary matter accounts for just 4 percent of the universe's content, and that dark matter takes in another 25 percent or so.
"We can actually say something about dark energy, which accounts for the other 70 percent of the universe and is causing the accelerated expansion," Kitching told me.
The challenge is open to anyone, though organizers are particularly keen for citizen scientists with experience in image manipulation and software development to step up to the plate -- for instance, the kind of people behind Galaxy Zoo, another online science project.
Kitching also would love to hear from people who have an idea but are not sure how to express it mathematically or with software. "If we think it is a good idea, then we are happy to work with them and turn their idea into a method that we can test," Kitching added.
Participants who download the GREAT10 data analysis package for the "Galaxy Challenge" will have nine months to run the simulations and process imaging data. The winning teams will receive an iPod or iPad, as well as an all-expenses-paid trip to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for one of the team members. JPL is where organizers will meet for a workshop on the GREAT10 project in September 2011. (Check out the project FAQ for details.)
In addition to the prizes, the winners will also get the feeling "that they helped us understand the dark matter and dark energy," Kitching added.
More about dark matter and dark energy
- Has dark matter finally been seen?
- Dark matter stars could solve cosmic mystery
- Dark matter revealed!
- Galaxies unlock new secrets of dark matter
- Are dark matter and dark energy not real?
- Dark energy in 3-D
- Dark energy mystery illuminated by cosmic lens
Learn more about the GREAT10 challenge from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and from Lisa Grossman at Wired.com.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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They should go to Washington, D.C. and look. There is more distortion there than anywhere else.
No no no, that is depravity, and deception.
instead of prizes how about a fucn Job
dark matter for now is just a myth , and it may require some funding.
I have an okay pc. I've got 500 gigs of space. I'd like to give this a shot. I read the FAQ and I saw numbers like 450Gb and 900Gb. Is this the kind of thing that would require some serious hardware? Or can us average Joe's help out?
interesting.
I have my own theories about these things. To begin with, I tend to think that much of the so called "missing mass" of our (closed system, finite, contiguum, curved space) Universe is actually to be found in quantum free space itself, and that the density of quantum free space actually varies relative to the strength of gravitational fields around gravitational bodies in space. Under this kind of model, it is not actually the curvature of space which bends light around stars, but the increasing density of quantum free space (relative to the strength of these gravitational gradients) which instead refracts light around stars. I also tend to think that matter is composed of both quantum bound energy, and quantum bound space, and that when matter is converted to quantum free energy, matter is also converted to quantum free space, and that this is the basis for the spatial expansion of our Universe. As far as the issue of so called "Dark Energy" goes, which supposedly is causing an acceleration in the expansion of our Universe, I tend to think that this acceleration phenomena is the result of the inertial expansion of our Universe exceeding the spatial expansion of our Universe, which means that this apparent acceleration is caused by our old familiar force of gravity itself, because beyond a certain point, the outer fringes of our Universe have already been reversed or turned back in, and are already accelerating back together under the force of gravity. - Rick Carter
PS - How's that for "Dark Side", people? Don't worry, for although I also think there is a Universal Black Hole left over from the "Big Bang", where most of the so called "missing antimatter" of our Universe probably resides (i.e., the "Dark Spot"), I tend to think that most of our Universe will actually be able to undergo a great many inertial oscillations or reverberations of this kind before it finally comes to an end. - Rick Carter
To John Roach, Alan Boyle, or anyone else that feels inclined to respond …please forgive my crude handling and speaking on the following question which regards the proposed study of dark matter/energy. I will try to come right to the philosophical point.
In nature there appears to be a modality of dualism implied by existence. That is to say, light cannot exist without the dualistic nature of dark; or, the axiomatic nature of left cannot exist without a concurrent axiomatic existence of right. In the nature of gravity and its operation on bodies of mass, there exists a defined and quantified “pull,” while dark matter or energy appears to create an axiomatic nature of a “push.” Do we then have a term for the physical existence of an anti gravity except, perhaps, as a dualistic inference implied by a mathematical constant explained as “-g” but without the broader terminology suggested by the physical terminology of “Gravity.” Should there not therefore be a name for this physical nature suggested by –g or antigravity and an accompanying set of operatives also given to the physical construct of Gravity? Furthermore, is it then a dualistic modality of dark matter or energy as gravity is a modality of the nature or existence of, qid pro quo, visible or light matter/energy? Therewith the dualistic nature of existence maintains some structure or balance in the realm of physics … is this a relevant nature of dark matter/energy and is it being researched in any sense? Does this even warrant any research or has such possible research provided any quantifiable results either now or in the past? Would it’s nature be a likely equal or equivalent construct of Gravity and thus not be a separable axiomatic construct?
Future generations, near future mind you, will be greatly amused by our primitive notions on dark matter/energy. Science seems bent on explaining away reality versus their calculations (all made with/via today's technology-today’s tech is great, but future generations’ tech will easily expose the weakness of the technology of today) with a grandiose belief of something that cannot be seen but is measurable. Science is about facts, not beliefs; those are the realms of dogma and religion.
I still recall when I was a child watching Cosmos with complete awe, listening to Carl Sagan bloviate about all they “knew” about space, most of which has turned out to be wrong. How many of the assumptions of even the outer planets and their moons have stood the test of Time from when we first started thinking about them to when we actually put craft to them? Even assumptions from the late 1960s were proven wrong when Voyager I & II arrived a few decades later. Everything I was taught as true about black holes during my years at Eberly College of Science has now been theorized as being “wrong”.
That is the same fate of dark matter/energy; a grandiose idea used to explain away the failings of today’s calculations & ideas due to the limited technology of today as compared to tomorrow's technology, but that is the way of great science. You come up with an idea, prove it to the best of your ability and Time then is the test.
Curved space verifiably appears around obviously local and strong mass concentrations. In some cases, it seems more distant light was on a flyby to our telescopes without an apparent distorting mass concentration in presently visible images. Any attempt to map the distribution of less obvious mass concentrations in the universe is to be encouraged and may even further imply, in my belief, the extent that gravity is not bound by the laws of optics, and the possible construction of a more rigid gravitational coordinate system independent of the curved one which we see, evidenced by photons.