Mysterious Cosmic 'Dark Flow' Tracked Deeper Into Universe

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Mar. 11, 2010) — Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles per hour along a path roughly centered on the southern constellations Centaurus and Hydra. A new study led by Alexander Kashlinsky at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., tracks this collective motion -- dubbed the "dark flow" -- to twice the distance originally reported.


"This is not something we set out to find, but we cannot make it go away," Kashlinsky said. "Now we see that it persists to much greater distances -- as far as 2.5 billion light-years away." The new study appears in the March 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The clusters appear to be moving along a line extending from our solar system toward Centaurus/Hydra, but the direction of this motion is less certain. Evidence indicates that the clusters are headed outward along this path, away from Earth, but the team cannot yet rule out the opposite flow. "We detect motion along this axis, but right now our data cannot state as strongly as we'd like whether the clusters are coming or going," Kashlinsky said.

The dark flow is controversial because the distribution of matter in the observed universe cannot account for it. Its existence suggests that some structure beyond the visible universe -- outside our "horizon" -- is pulling on matter in our vicinity.

The colored dots are clusters within one of four distance ranges, with redder colors indicating greater distance. Colored ellipses show the direction of bulk motion for the clusters of the corresponding color. Images of representative galaxy clusters in each distance slice are also shown. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/A. Kashlinsky, et al.)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100310162829.htm

[Newest Reality]

1. So has ...

"The Dick" Cheney commented on the discovery of his power source? At least we can identify it now, and "Dark Flow" is an appropriate term.

[Wilber_Stool]

2. As I've said before,

Oh great, more befuddlement. That's all I need.

[MineralMan]

3. It's either Jebus coming or the Empire returning.

Either way, we're all doomed!

[SutaUvaca]

4. Thanks n2doc!

Have to admit, these "latest discovery" tidbits in science that you post are one of my favorite things to find every time I go to DU.

Thank you! This is a particularly intriguing one.

[qazplm]

5. does it validate the idea

that there is matter/mass/stuff outside our light horizon?

IOW there is more out there then the observable universe? Maybe a lot more?

[bananas]

6. More importantly, something on the other side is different than what's on this side

The assumption has been that everything is pretty much the same everywhere.

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. We're almsot blind, cosmically speaking

All we can observe is inside the light cone, and even there, we can see very little of it. I am often amused by people positing the shape of the entire universe when we can only see inside the light cone, and poorly at that. No one knows what lies beyond our limited probing capabilities.

[IndianaGreen]

8. If our universe is a bubble, perhaps it has a tear and is leaking out

which may explain the cluster motion and the weakness of gravity. This is my guess as a non-scientific, grade school dropout, couch potato.

[roguevalley]

9. given some of the theories out there -membranes, bubbles inside of

bubbles- its got a good ring to me, INdianaGreen. :P

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Everyone born after 1970 or so knows it's the neutral zone. n/t