00:00A Glimpse into the Invisible, the Mystery of Dark Matter
00:03Imagine peering into space and seeing something that shouldn't be there.
00:08That's precisely what happened to astrophysicist Charles Keaton
00:11when his colleague Andrew Baker showed him an unusual image.
00:15It was what's known as an Einstein cross, but with a twist,
00:19a fifth image right in the center.
00:22Keaton's reaction was immediate and telling.
00:25That's not supposed to happen.
00:26An Einstein cross is a cosmic configuration where light from a distant galaxy
00:31is bent and magnified by the gravity of massive galaxies in the foreground.
00:36This effect, known as gravitational lensing,
00:39typically creates four distinct images of the background galaxy.
00:42But in the system called Hearst 3, there was a fifth image.
00:46Keaton knew that this extra image pointed to something unusual in the mass that was bending the light,
00:51and that something unusual turned out to be a massive halo of dark matter.
00:55For those unfamiliar, dark matter makes up most of the universe's mass, but is invisible to us.
01:02We can't see it directly.
01:03Its presence is inferred by the gravitational effects it has on visible matter, and, crucially, on light.
01:10As Baker explained,
01:12we only know it's there because of how it affects the things we can see,
01:15like the way it bends light from distant galaxies.
01:18The discovery of this unusual five-image Einstein cross
01:21provided a unique opportunity to study this invisible structure in unprecedented detail.
01:27The journey to this discovery began with French astronomer Pierre Cox,
01:30who was the first to detect the anomaly in data from the Nomoran radio telescopes in the French Alps.
01:36Cox recalls his surprise.
01:38It looked like a cross, and there was this image in the center.
01:42I knew I had never seen that before.
01:43It was through careful computer modeling and analysis,
01:47led by Keaton and student Lana Ede, that the invisible became apparent.
01:51Their models showed that the four visible galaxies alone
01:54could not explain the five-image pattern they observed.
01:57The only way for their model to match the observations
02:00was with the addition of a large invisible mass,
02:03which they identified as a dark matter halo.
02:06We tried every reasonable configuration using just the visible galaxies,
02:10and none of them worked, Keaton stated.
02:12The only way to make the math and physics align was to add a dark matter halo.
02:17That's the power of modeling.
02:19It helps reveal what you can't see.
02:21This is not just a cool-looking cosmic phenomenon.
02:24It's scientifically invaluable.
02:27As Cox highlighted, this system is like a natural laboratory.
02:31The gravitational lensing effect not only magnifies the background galaxy,
02:35allowing astronomers to study its structure in greater detail,
02:38but also offers an exceptional opportunity to learn about the dark matter
02:42enveloping the foreground galaxies.
02:45The international team is already making more predictions,
02:48such as the potential visibility of gas flowing out of the distant galaxy
02:51in future observations.
02:53If these predictions are confirmed,
02:55they will strongly validate their models.
02:58If not, it will still lead to new insights
03:00illustrating the self-correcting nature of science.
03:02This groundbreaking work underscores the critical importance
03:06of international collaboration and federal support for scientific efforts.
03:11Using advanced observatories like ALMA, the VLA, and the Hubble Space Telescope,
03:15this unprecedented Einstein cross has opened a unique window
03:19into the universe's most elusive component, dark matter.
03:23Money experience.
03:23Money experience.
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