astrobites
dark matter
Mysterious Gas Clouds between M31 and M33
Seven gas clouds have been found in the region between two galaxies. Are they part of a intergalactic filament or remnants from a past galaxy interaction?
Where are the positrons coming from?
In today’s astrobite, we discuss the puzzling results from the AMS-02 experiment, which has detected an excess of positrons in cosmic rays with respect to what we expect from known physical sources. Where are those positrons coming from?
Closing in on Dark Matter?
The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment has found signatures in its data consistent with a dark matter Weakly Interacting Massive Particle. While not confident enough to declare a dark matter discovery, they estimate that there is only a 0.2% chance that these signatures are caused by random chance.
Seeing Galaxy formation before reionization: baryon-dark matter relative velocity helps!
Relative velocity in the early Universe between regular matter (baryons) and dark matter enhances an otherwise hard-to-detect signal and makes it likely we can look back even farther into the past.
Do Elliptical Galaxies Have Dark Matter Halos?
Based on galactic rotation curves, we think that spiral galaxies are embedded in massive dark matter halos. Is the same true for elliptical galaxies? Magain and Chantry use gravitational lensing to measure the mass-to-light ratios in 15 elliptical galaxies, and the results might surprise you!
The search for WIMP annihilation in the Sun
The quest for identifying the dark matter particle is well underway. Today, we discuss the work of the ANTARES collaboration, which is using a neutrino telescope to search for signals of dark matter annihilation in the Sun.
The Top 12 of 2012
What were astronomers reading and talking about in their research last year? Check out figures from the top 12 most-cited astronomy papers from 2012 (so far) and find out what researchers were up to and why!
The strength of weak lensing
The Canada-France Hawaii Telescope weak gravitational lensing survey (CFHTLens), recently released new results to help constrain our cosmological models. While still in its early stages, weak lensing will ultimately be a powerful tool to discover the nature of the mysterious dark energy.
WMAP’s Closing Comments: ΛCDM Stands Strong
The final results from the WMAP satellite show agreement with the standard model of cosmology to unprecedented precision.
Gravitational Lensing in the Canary Islands
I recently attended a two-week crash course in the “Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Lensing”. In this post, I overview a few of the ways astronomers employ lensing to study the Universe, from extrasolar planets to distant quasars and large-scale structure.
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