Newscenter Update: Ambitious Hubble Survey Obtaining New Dark Matter Census

October 13, 2011 Get larger image formats   Find the entire Hubble News archive, image galleries, and much more at hubblesite.org Stay Connected   Ambitious Hubble Survey Obtaining New Dark Matter Census Cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 (or MACS 1206 for short) is one of the first targets in a Hubble Space Telescope survey that will allow astronomers to construct the highly detailed dark matter maps of more galaxy clusters than ever before. These maps are being used to test previous but surprising results that suggest that dark matter is more densely packed inside galaxy clusters than some models predict. This might mean that galaxy cluster assembly began earlier than commonly thought. The multiwavelength survey, called the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), probes, with unparalleled precision, the distribution of dark matter in 25 massive clusters of galaxies. So far, the CLASH team has completed observations of six of the 25 clusters. MACS 1206 lies 4.5 billion light-years from Earth. This image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 in April 2011 through July 2011. RELEASE LINKS: See full release More Images Video Fast Facts This news release and its supporting materials are permanently achived at: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/25/ You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list, which sends notices in HTML whenever there is a new Hubble Space Telescope image, product, or news update. If you would like to unsubscribe or change your email preferences, please go to: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/hubble_on_the_go/inbox_astronomy/