Einstein's theory of gravity confirmed as scientists create map of the invisible world
The team tracked how dark matter warps the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) as it traveled towards Earth over 14 billion years
Scientists from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration have created an image that shows the most detailed map of dark matter distributed across a quarter of the sky.
This confirms Albert Einstein's theory of how large structures grow and bend light throughout the universe's life span of 14 billion years.
Dark matter makes up 85% of the universe and is hard to detect because it only interacts with gravity and not with light or other electromagnetic radiation.
To track down dark matter, scientists observed light from the Big Bang when the universe was 380,000 years old.
The team tracked how dark matter warps the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) as it traveled towards Earth over 14 billion years, similar to how a magnifying glass bends light.
ACT, which operated for 15 years, was decommissioned in September 2022. Nevertheless, more papers presenting results from the final set of observations are expected to be submitted soon, and the Simons Observatory will conduct future observations at the same site, with a new telescope slated to begin operations in 2024.
This new instrument will be capable of mapping the sky almost 10 times faster than ACT.
