Dark matter is held together by 'attractors'
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 14:49
in Astronomy & Space
The universe consists of a large amount of invisible matter - dark matter. We do not know what it is, but we know that it is there and that without dark matter there would be no galaxies, and hence stars, planets and life as we know it. The universe is filled with large structures that are dominated by dark matter and in these dark matter spheres or 'halos' the light emitting particles form stars and gas clumps. Recent studies show that these dark matter halos have so-called attractors, which preserve their shape. The results are published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.