How did scientist know that the dark ring found by hubble telescope is in fact dark matter?

Question

Where can I find high quality pictures of it, and more info about it?

Found the answer myself:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/news/dark_matter_ring_feature.html

Seems they can tell because of the way the light from some galaxies is bent when passing through that area

Thanks Kris, I hope someone puts that teleconference on youtube or something :)

Answer 1

NASA will explain all this in a press briefing tomorrow:

"NASA Updates Plans for Hubble 'Ring Of Dark Matter' Briefing

GREENBELT, Md. - NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT on May 15 to discuss the strongest evidence to date that dark matter exists. This evidence was found in a ghostly ring of dark matter in the cluster CL0024+17, discovered using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The ring is the first detection of dark matter with a unique structure different from the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas in the cluster. The discovery will be featured in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal."

Apparently NASA has jumped the gun and printed the press release that will be issued tomorrow. It is much too long to quote here. To see it go to the second website listed.



BORIS, You wrote that you hoped the news conference would be on the web. Try the third link at 1 PM EDT, Wed, 5/15
"

Answer 2

A video of dark matter (graphic 4):
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/1e0657/media/

Answer 3

I just got done watching a video from space.com explaining that ring of dark matter you're talking about then I saw your question.

Check out the vid!

http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=150407Dark_matter

And yeah...it's called 'gravitational lensing' :)

Answer 4

Well, the link you provided has the picture in high quality. You did see that you can click on the picture didn't you?
2400x3000 isn't good enough for you? :-)

Answer 5

They couldn't Know that because they couldnt see dark matter hence "dark" matter