Random or Designed Universe: Are Humans Real?

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

Cosmologist Martin Rees explores and discusses the Universe and asks questions such do we live in a random or designed Universe, where did we come from, where are we going, and what is the nature of reality?

Humans are the most complex organism we know of in the Universe. Remarkably, atoms have been able to assemble into entities, i.e. humans, "which somehow have been able to ponder their origins".

The human understanding of reality, of the Universe, began with religion and a Creator. As science progressed a random, not a designed, Universe seemed probable. Now a simulated reality, a virtual Universe, may be the true reality which implies a Creator once again.

What We Still Don't Know: "Are We Real?"

Chapter 1: In which the cosmologists learn that we were no accident waiting to happen (3:27)
Chapter 2: In which the cosmologists find that just one suit fits (16:38)
Chapter 3: In which the cosmologists find that they are not the most intelligent things in our Universe, or in others (27:57)
Chapter 4: In which the cosmologists learn that their suits are knock-offs (40:55)

Series from Channel 4 featuring Sir Martin Rees. There is a fundamental chasm in our understanding of ourselves, the universe, and everything. To solve this, Sir Martin takes us on a mind-boggling journey through multiple universes to post-biological life. On the way we learn of the disturbing possibility that we could be the product of someone else's experiment.





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Michio Kaku: Physics, Science, The Universe

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Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku provides a fast 42-minute review of physics, science, and the Universe. Though a quick history and primer, Kaku is entertaining and adds his learned perspective.

Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell

The Universe in a Nutshell: The Physics of Everything Michio Kaku, Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at CUNY




Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

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Most Distant Galaxy Observed by Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes

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The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, is very young and only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way.

NASA's Great Observatories Find Candidate for Most Distant Galaxy

WASHINGTON -- By combining the power of NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and one of nature's own natural "zoom lenses" in space, astronomers have set a new record for finding the most distant galaxy seen in the universe.

The farthest galaxy appears as a diminutive blob that is only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. But it offers a peek back into a time when the universe was 3 percent of its present age of 13.7 billion years. The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, was observed 420 million years after the Big Bang, the theorized beginning of the universe. Its light has traveled 13.3 billion years to reach Earth.

This find is the latest discovery from a program that uses natural zoom lenses to reveal distant galaxies in the early universe. The Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH), an international group led by Marc Postman of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., is using massive galaxy clusters as cosmic telescopes to magnify distant galaxies behind them. This effect is called gravitational lensing.

Along the way, 8 billion years into its journey, light from MACS0647-JD took a detour along multiple paths around the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0647+7015. Without the cluster's magnification powers, astronomers would not have seen this remote galaxy. Because of gravitational lensing, the CLASH research team was able to observe three magnified images of MACS0647-JD with the Hubble telescope. The cluster's gravity boosted the light from the faraway galaxy, making the images appear about eight, seven, and two times brighter than they otherwise would that enabled astronomers to detect the galaxy more efficiently and with greater confidence.

"This cluster does what no manmade telescope can do," said Postman. "Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy."

MACS0647-JD is so small it may be in the first steps of forming a larger galaxy. An analysis shows the galaxy is less than 600 light-years wide. Based on observations of somewhat closer galaxies, astronomers estimate that a typical galaxy of a similar age should be about 2,000 light-years wide. For comparison, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy companion to the Milky Way, is 14,000 light-years wide. Our Milky Way is 150,000 light-years across.

"This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy," said the study's lead author, Dan Coe of the Space Telescope Science Institute. "Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments."

Read More: NASA - NASA's Great Observatories Find Candidate for Most Distant Galaxy

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Development of a Galaxy: NASA Simulation Spans 13.5 Billion Years

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NGC 3344 is a glorious spiral galaxy around half the size of the Milky Way, which lies 25 million light-years distant. We are fortunate enough to see NGC 3344 face-on, allowing us to study its structure in detail.

NASA - Computer Model Shows a Disk Galaxy's Life History

This cosmological simulation follows the development of a single disk galaxy over about 13.5 billion years, from shortly after the Big Bang to the present time. Colors indicate old stars (red), young stars (white and bright blue) and the distribution of gas density (pale blue); the view is 300,000 light-years across.

The simulation ran on the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and required about 1 million CPU hours. It assumes a universe dominated by dark energy and dark matter. Credit: F. Governato and T. Quinn (Univ. of Washington), A. Brooks (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison), and J. Wadsley (McMaster Univ.).



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The Ultimate Map: How Big Is The Universe?

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Universe Time Line

Our Universe consists of galaxies and galaxy clusters expanding at an accelerating rate in all directions connected by a cosmic web of gravity. Is there a boundary to the Universe and therefore to an ultimate map of the Universe? Is the Universe infinite in all directions?

Would a map of the Universe be the ultimate map created by humanity? Time will tell, but Anthony Aguirre has an even bigger idea. What if there are other Universes, even an infinity of Universes? Could these Universes ultimately be mapped in relation to our Universe and others? That would truly be the ultimate, and never-ending, map!

How Big Is The Universe? (BBC)

It is one of the most baffling questions that scientists can ask: how big is the Universe that we live in?

Horizon follows the cosmologists who are creating the most ambitious map in history - a map of everything in existence....

See more about the video here.



Temperature Map of the Measurable Universe: WMAP Full Sky 7 Years


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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Team: Observing the Evolving Universe

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

Original Announcement => Farthest View Ever of the Universe: Hubble eXtreme Deep Field

Hubble Space Telescope: Deepest View Ever of the Universe

This is an extraordinary accomplishment and webinar. The public was invited to participate in a "Meet the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Observing Team" webinar, where three key astronomers of the XDF observing team described how they assembled the landmark image and explained what it tells us about the evolving universe. The webinar begins at 4:00 in video below.

Ray Villard (STScI) introduced and moderated the panel. The team present were Garth Illingworth, Dan McGee, and Pascal Oesch, all from University of California Santa Cruz. Each presented background and procedures on the eXtreme Deep Field image. Some notable concepts, facts, and quotes are below the video.



Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: Some Notable Concepts, Facts, Quotes

Ultimately the search is for the first galaxies. XDF is key to understanding the origins of galaxies, the search for the first galaxies, when and how did galaxies form and grow, how the Milky Way and Andromeda formed.

Hubble is a time machine: XDF sees galaxies forming 13.2 billion years ago, 450 million years after the Big Bang, and sees back in time through 96% of the life of the Universe.

Galaxies earlier than 800 million years after the Big Bang can only be seen in infrared light. XDF reveals these galaxies unseen in deepest visible-light Hubble Utra Deep Field images.

Hubble is at its limit of detection, for finding any earlier galaxies (400 million years after the Big Bang). The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will discover the first galaxies and probably the first stars. The gain in efficiency and resolution will be a factor of 100 with the JWST and will be "astonishingly powerful". The project is working towards a 2018 launch date.

The Universe is basically the same in any direction, is symmetric. No asymmetries have been detected.

XDF is full of galaxies and there might be even more fainter galaxies beyond the image that cannot be currently seen. There are more galaxies, and fainter galaxies, in the image than expected beforehand. The Universe is full of tiny, little galaxies in the early times that are building up.

The numbers of galaxies, in redshift 12 to 15, is estimated to decrease. The number of galaxies probably increased around redshift 10. Beyond the redshift is the cosmic glow, the cosmic microwave background, from the Big Bang.

Very small gravitational lensing effect in XDF. Galaxy clusters and very large galaxies were avoided which cause this effect. There is tiny "weak lensing" effect in image.

The age of the galaxy images, particularly using powerful microwave telescopes, has been determined independently. Beyond the scope of the XDF to determine.

XDF is not designed to search for or detect dark energy or dark matter. Supernova searches originally detected dark energy. Galaxy cluster and weak lensing large-scale observations originally detected dark matter.

Deep in the XDF image, the early galaxies are smaller with more intense light and much closer together. The Universe was a tenth (1/10) if its size now. Presumably these galaxies would build up to larger current galaxies such as the Milky Way and Andromeda. The early galaxies are the seeds from which current galaxies evolved. These early galaxies grew, collided, merged in a very dynamic and dramatic process.

The cosmic microwave background was about 400,000 years after the Big Bang, very soon afterwards. The limit of the XDF is 400 million years after the Big Bang. Perhaps first galaxies formed about 150 to 200 million years after the Big Bang. Perhaps the first stars came together about 100 - 150 million years after the Big Bang. Before that were the Dark Ages. The first stars and galaxies ended the Dark Ages.

The earliest galaxies observed are moving away from each other as the Universe expands, increasingly separating from each other. A small fraction of these galaxies were pulled towards each other by gravity, if close enough. The example of the expanding balloon with dots on it...

XDF and Hubble cannot detect individual stars within the early galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) probably will not be able to either and therefore will not be able to detect the individual "first stars". The JWST will probably be able to detect early supernova, however.

XDF is really about galaxies and not about the formation of the Universe itself. A major change in the Universe occurred from about a few hundred million years to 900 million years after the Big Bang. The change from neutral hydrogen to ionized hydrogen in the Universe and within the XDF time frame was most likely caused by the galaxies. XDF will not add significantly to cosmology, however.

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Artificial Intelligence Maps the Universe: An Algorithm's View

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How does an algorithm view the Universe, if all the known variables are provided? Artificial intelligence can balance all these variables, crunch the simultaneous equations, much better than some top-tier, but outdated, hominid on a (much) slower biological platform.


(above) An image of a slice through the local universe, 370 million light years on each side. The red circles mark the positions of galaxies observed with the 2MRS survey which measured the positions and distances of over 45000 galaxies. The blue circles are random points (galaxies) inserted to smooth the map across the 'zone of avoidance' where nearby gas and dust in our Galaxy blocks the view of more distant objects. These data are superimposed on the light and dark background of the cosmic web of galaxies modelled by Kitaura et al using an artificial intelligence algorithm. Credit: Francisco Kitaura, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Chart the Universe

(Phys.org) Astronomers in Germany have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to help them chart and explain the structure and dynamics of the universe around us with unprecedented accuracy. The team, led by Francisco Kitaura of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, report their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Scientists routinely use large telescopes to scan the sky, mapping the coordinates and estimating the distances of hundreds of thousands of galaxies and so enabling them to create a map of the large-scale structure of the Universe. But the distribution that astronomers see is intriguing and hard to explain, with galaxies forming a complex 'cosmic web' showing clusters, filaments connecting them, and large empty regions in between.

The driving force for such a rich structure is gravitation. This force originates from two components; firstly the 5% of the universe that appears to be made of 'normal' matter that makes up the stars, planets, dust and gas we can see and secondly the 23% made up of invisible 'dark' matter. Alongside these some 72% of the cosmos is made up of a mysterious 'dark energy' that rather than exerting a gravitational pull is thought to be responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe. Together these three constituents are described in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model for the cosmos, the starting point for the work of the Potsdam team.

Measurements of the residual heat from the Big Bang – the so-called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation or CMBR emitted 13700 million years ago – allow astronomers to determine the motion of the Local Group, the cluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in. Astronomers try to reconcile this motion with that predicted by the distribution of matter around us and its associated gravitational force, but this is compromised by the difficulty of mapping the dark matter in the same region.

"Finding the dark matter distribution corresponding to a galaxy catalogue is like trying to make a geographical map of Europe from a satellite image during the night that only shows the light coming from dense populated areas", says Dr Kitaura.

To try to solve this problem he developed a new algorithm based on artificial intelligence (AI). It starts with the fluctuations in the density of the universe seen in the CMBR, then models the way that matter collapses into today's galaxies over the subsequent 13 billion years. The results of the AI algorithm are a close fit to the observed distribution and motion of galaxies.

Dr. Kitaura comments, "Our precise calculations show that the direction of motion and 80% of the speed of the galaxies that make up the Local Group can be explained by the gravitational forces that arise from matter up to 370 million light years away. In comparison the Andromeda Galaxy, the largest member of the Local Group, is a mere 2.5 million light years distant so we are seeing how the distribution of matter at great distances affects galaxies much closer to home.

'Our results are also in close agreement with the predictions of the LCDM model. To explain the rest of the 20% of the speed, we need to consider the influence of matter up to about 460 million light years away, but at the moment the data are less reliable at such a large distance.

'Despite this caveat, our model is a big step forward. With the help of AI, we can now model the universe around us with unprecedented accuracy and study how the largest structures in the cosmos came into being."


WMAP Full Sky 7 Years
(above) The detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe created from seven years of WMAP data. The image reveals 13.7 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. The signal from the our Galaxy was subtracted using the multi-frequency data. This image shows a temperature range of ± 200 microKelvin. Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

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Farthest View Ever of the Universe: Hubble eXtreme Deep Field

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

Countless planets, stars, galaxies, clusters...

Farthest View Ever of the Universe: Hubble eXtreme Deep Field

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012: Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time. The new full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies and includes very deep exposures in red light from Hubble's new infrared camera, enabling new studies of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The XDF contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.

Fly Through the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field This video takes you through Hubble's deepest view of the universe, from its location in the sky to the dimmest, most distant galaxies.



Hubble Extreme Deep Field Pushes Back Frontiers of Time and Space This video explains how astronomers meticulously assembled mankind's deepest view of the universe from combining Hubble Space Telescope exposures taken over the past decade. Guest scientists are Dr. Garth Illingworth and Dr. Marc Postman.









The public is invited to participate in a "Meet the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Observing Team" webinar, where three key astronomers of the XDF observing team will describe how they assembled the landmark image and explain what it tells us about the evolving universe. Participants will be able to send in questions for the panel of experts to discuss. The webinar will be broadcast at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 27, 2012. To participate in the webinar, please visit: http://hubblesite.org/go/xdf/ .

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NASA Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes Observe Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen?

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Newly discovered galaxy known as MACS 1149-JD (Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/JHU)

A Glimmer From a Dark Cosmic Era

WASHINGTON (NASA) -- With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, astronomers have spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the primordial galaxy traveled approximately 13.2 billion light-years before reaching NASA's telescopes, shining forth from the so-called cosmic dark ages when the universe was just 3.6 percent of its present age.

Astronomers relied on gravitational lensing to catch sight of the early, distant galaxy. In this phenomenon, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, the gravity of foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects.

In the big image at left, the many galaxies of a massive cluster called MACS J1149+2223 dominate the scene. Gravitational lensing by the giant cluster brightened the light from the newfound galaxy, known as MACS 1149-JD, some 15 times, bringing the remote object into view.

At upper right, a partial zoom-in shows MACS 1149-JD in more detail, and a deeper zoom appears to the lower right. In these visible and infrared light images from Hubble, MACS 1149-JD looks like a dim, red speck. The small galaxy's starlight has been stretched into longer wavelengths, or "redshifted," by the expansion of the universe. MACS 1149-JD's stars originally emitted the infrared light seen here at much shorter, higher-energy wavelengths, such as ultraviolet.

The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe transformed from a starless expanse during the dark ages to a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy opens a window onto the deepest, remotest epochs of cosmic history.


Hubble Space Telescope

NASA Telescopes Spy Ultra-Distant Galaxy Amidst Cosmic 'Dark Ages'

WASHINGTON (NASA) -- With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, astronomers have spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the young galaxy captured by the orbiting observatories first shone when our 13.7-billion-year-old universe was just 500 million years old.

The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe began to transit from the so-called cosmic dark ages. During this period, the universe went from a dark, starless expanse to a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy opens a window onto the deepest, remotest epochs of cosmic history.

"This galaxy is the most distant object we have ever observed with high confidence," said Wei Zheng, a principal research scientist in the department of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and lead author of a new paper appearing in Nature. "Future work involving this galaxy, as well as others like it that we hope to find, will allow us to study the universe's earliest objects and how the dark ages ended."

Light from the primordial galaxy traveled approximately 13.2 billion light-years before reaching NASA's telescopes. In other words, the starlight snagged by Hubble and Spitzer left the galaxy when the universe was just 3.6 percent of its present age. Technically speaking, the galaxy has a redshift, or "z," of 9.6. The term redshift refers to how much an object's light has shifted into longer wavelengths as a result of the expansion of the universe. Astronomers use redshift to describe cosmic distances.

Unlike previous detections of galaxy candidates in this age range, which were only glimpsed in a single color, or waveband, this newfound galaxy has been seen in five different wavebands. As part of the Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble Program, the Hubble Space Telescope registered the newly described, far-flung galaxy in four visible and infrared wavelength bands. Spitzer measured it in a fifth, longer-wavelength infrared band, placing the discovery on firmer ground.

Objects at these extreme distances are mostly beyond the detection sensitivity of today's largest telescopes. To catch sight of these early, distant galaxies, astronomers rely on gravitational lensing. In this phenomenon, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, the gravity of foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects. A massive galaxy cluster situated between our galaxy and the newfound galaxy magnified the newfound galaxy's light, brightening the remote object some 15 times and bringing it into view.

Based on the Hubble and Spitzer observations, astronomers think the distant galaxy was less than 200 million years old when it was viewed. It also is small and compact, containing only about 1 percent of the Milky Way's mass. According to leading cosmological theories, the first galaxies indeed should have started out tiny. They then progressively merged, eventually accumulating into the sizable galaxies of the more modern universe.

These first galaxies likely played the dominant role in the epoch of reionization, the event that signaled the demise of the universe's dark ages. This epoch began about 400,000 years after the Big Bang when neutral hydrogen gas formed from cooling particles. The first luminous stars and their host galaxies emerged a few hundred million years later. The energy released by these earliest galaxies is thought to have caused the neutral hydrogen strewn throughout the universe to ionize, or lose an electron, a state that the gas has remained in since that time.

"In essence, during the epoch of reionization, the lights came on in the universe," said paper co-author Leonidas Moustakas, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Astronomers plan to study the rise of the first stars and galaxies and the epoch of reionization with the successor to both Hubble and Spitzer, NASA's James Webb Telescope, which is scheduled for launch in 2018. The newly described distant galaxy likely will be a prime target.


Spitzer Space Telescope

For more information about Spitzer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

For more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

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The Thirteenth Floor: Realities Within Realities

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Nested and Interconnected Realities

Nothing like stacking simulated realities on top of simulated realities and/or interconnecting realities to mix events up! Then the question of "What is real?" begins to confuse a wandering soul! See The Thirteenth Floor videos below, in which two realities become interconnected and begin to impact each other.

Humanity is just at the initial steps of virtual reality creations (e.g. computer games, Second Life, The Sims, World of Warcraft, et. al). As these become more immersive, the lines will begin to blur between our so-called objective reality and emerging virtual realities. Will humanity ultimately migrate into virtual reality, leaving our objective reality behind?

If humanity ultimately creates virtual realities which are a viable subset of our existing "objective reality", could this infer our reality is likewise a subset of a larger reality? If so, could this larger reality, which has been called extra-dimensional, metaphysical, and/or spiritual by the pundits and philosophers, have created the Universe as a simulated reality?

Perception of reality, our stream of consciousness, the world as we begin to see with new eyes becomes a series of Russian nested eggs or dolls, one within another within another. A dream within a dream...

The Thirteenth Floor Trailer

The barriers that separate fantasy from reality are shattered in this stylish, mind-jarring thriller, where two parallel worlds collide in a paroxysm of deception, madness and murder.

On the thirteenth floor of a corporate tower, high-tech visionary Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko, The Long Kiss Goodnight) and his high-strung colleague, Whitney (Vincent D'Onofrio, Men In Black), have opened the door to an amazing virtual world - circa 1937 Los Angeles. But when the powerful leader of their secret project (Armin Mueller-Stahl, Shine, The X-Files) is discovered slashed to death, Hall himself becomes the prime suspect.

Arriving from Paris is the beautiful and mysterious Jane Fuller (Gretchen Mol, Rounders), claiming to be the murder victim's daughter. Her instant, magnetic attraction to Hall only further blurs the lines of what is real. Is he the killer? Is the inscrutable Jane somehow connected?

To find the answers, Hall must cross the boundaries into the simulated reality he has helped create - and confront the astonishing truth about his own existence.



The Thirteenth Floor Movie

To unravel a mystery, a murder suspect must explore the boundaries between reality and a computer-simulated fantasy.





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Mike Adams & Tom Campbell on Reality & Consciousness

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"Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?" ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Mike Adams, aka The Health Ranger, of NaturalNews.com has started another website, DivinityNow.com. The first video released on the new website is The God Within (below).

Mike raises some solid, thought-provoking points regarding physics, objective reality, virtual reality, consciousness, and even political philosophy. I have posted about the various forms of the Simulation Argument, the Universe as virtual reality.

I disagree with Mike on the issue of observation, specifically consciousness, affecting quantum physics observations. The classic example is the Double Slit Paradox. In my opinion, Tom Campbell has successfully explained this. It is information (not consciousness, measurement, or observation) that is determining the resulting data and further explanation is on this website (and the second video below). Sure, consciousness is required to enable the act of measurement or observation, but it is the information created that is the key. However, mind over matter is possible via consciousness and information, in my opinion.

At the end of the video, Mike comes to the conclusion that what is called "enlightenment" in various spiritual traditions is actually the realization that you are in fact inside a virtual reality, a contained reality. Further, you are reaching out to the "outside" reality, outside our virtual reality, outside our Universe, to the creator and designer. This agrees with Tom Campbell's conclusions.

This is an intriguing idea and reminds me of Alan Watts, a Zen Buddhist adherent. Watts said that when a master attained enlightenment it called for a good laugh by the now enlightened master. I personally took this to mean first, the enlightenment was most likely not what was originally expected at the beginning of the spiritual journey, and second, the enlightenment unveiled the ultimate absurdity and humor of the situation the master realized he (and everyone else) was actually in.

The God Within (FULL) from DivinityNow.com - Mike Adams

DivinityNow.com, founded by Mike Adams, releases this mind-expanding documentary on "conscious cosmology," covering consciousness, particle physics, the nature of reality, the Big Bang, quantum physics, origins of life, free will, and more.



Tom Campbell discusses the Universe as a virtual reality and each human as a consciousness receiving a data stream. Humans are virtual creations as is the entire Universe, rendered by something beyond this reality. He begins with the Double Slit Experiment Paradox and later mentions a recent quantum entanglement discovery that confirms his theory.

My Reality = Virtual + Information. Let's go down the rabbit hole with Tom in this interview and discover the world is not as it seems. That is, the Universe is not a physical, objective reality. See tags at end of post for additional information on this subject, including The Universe As a Virtual Reality and the Double Slit Experiment Paradox.

Tom Campbell: Our Reality Is Information

In this informal interview in Atlanta June 8, 2012, Tom Campbell, author of My Big TOE, expands on the significance of the scientific experiment called the Double Slit in terms everyone can understand.

"If you understand the Double Slit experiment, you understand how our reality works". He continues "Everything we do is not different from the Double Slit experiment".

This explanation is valuable to scientists as well as the general public. Tom takes a difficult subject and applies helpful analogies to clarify the implications of this scientific experiment.



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CERN: Evidence of Higgs Boson Particle Discovered

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One event with two muons (tracks in red) and two electrons (tracks in green) found by CMS.

The two teams at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, CMS and ATLAS, have reported their results to-date in the search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson. The particle discovered is most  likely the Higgs Boson but additional research is necessary. A 5 sigma confidence is considered a discovery and adequate confidence (odds are less than 1 in 3.5 million that it was produced by chance).

Peter Higgs, 83, who first proposed the idea of the boson in 1964 was present and cried at the end of the presentation. "For me it's a really incredible thing that it's happened in my lifetime".

Joe Incandela of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) team confirmed that a particle has been discovered that is consistent with the Higgs boson theory. The new boson has a mass 125.3GeV (+-0.6) with a 4.9 sigma confidence.

Fabiola Gianotti of the ATLAS team confirmed a Higgs-like boson particle has been discovered at a mass of 126.5GeV with a 5.0 sigma confidence.

Cern Scientists Announce Higgs Boson Discovery Scientists at the Cern research centre in Switzerland reveal they have found a new subatomic particle that could be the Higgs boson. The announcement was greeted by rousing cheers and a few tears from the audience. The finding marks a breakthrough in understanding of the fundamental laws that govern the universe.



The Discovery of the Higgs Boson? Garrett Lisi Explains Following the CERN announcement, Theoretical physicist Garrett Lisi explains the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle by CERN scientists. Previously, LHC results have strongly signaled the existence of a Higgs with a mass of 125 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), or roughly 125 times more massive than the proton.



The Higgs Boson: Fireworks or Flameout? Theoretical Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku says that even with strong evidence of the Higgs Boson, it is not time to pop the champagne. Next up: use the Large Hardon Collider to find dark energy.

Watch video here.

What Is a Higgs Boson? Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the nature of the Higgs boson. Several large experimental groups are hot on the trail of this elusive subatomic particle which is thought to explain the origins of particle mass.





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Fermilab Announces Higgs Particle Results: Closer But Not Close Enough

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The Tevatron and Main Injector rings at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. (Image credit: US Energy Department)

As the world awaits the July 4 update by CERN on the Large Hadron Collider results in the search for the Higgs particle, Fermilab announced their Tevatron results on July 2.

Fermilab reported "Tevatron scientists found that the observed Higgs signal in the combined CDF and DZero data in the bottom-quark decay mode has a statistical significance of 2.9 sigma. This means there is only a 1-in-550 chance that the signal is due to a statistical fluctuation".

"We achieved a critical step in the search for the Higgs boson,” said Dmitri Denisov, DZero cospokesperson and physicist at Fermilab. “While 5-sigma significance is required for a discovery, it seems unlikely that the Tevatron collisions mimicked a Higgs signal. Nobody expected the Tevatron to get this far when it was built in the 1980s."

Scientists Announce New Findings on Higgs Boson Researchers near Chicago announce they're closer to proving the Higgs boson exists. European scientists set to make a Higgs announcement soon.



Tevatron Scientists Announce Their Final Results on the Higgs Particle

Fermilab - July 2, 2012

After more than 10 years of gathering and analyzing data produced by the U.S. Department of Energy's Tevatron collider, scientists from the CDF and DZero collaborations have found their strongest indication to date for the long-sought Higgs particle. Squeezing the last bit of information out of 500 trillion collisions produced by the Tevatron for each experiment since March 2001, the final analysis of the data does not settle the question of whether the Higgs particle exists, but gets closer to an answer. The Tevatron scientists unveiled their latest results on July 2, two days before the highly anticipated announcement of the latest Higgs-search results from the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

“The Tevatron experiments accomplished the goals that we had set with this data sample,” said Fermilab’s Rob Roser, cospokesperson for the CDF experiment at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “Our data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a discovery.” "The Tevatron experiments accomplished the goals that we had set with this data sample," said Fermilab's Rob Roser, cospokesperson for the CDF experiment at DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. "Our data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a discovery."

Scientists of the CDF and DZero collider experiments at the Tevatron received a round of rousing applause from hundreds of colleagues when they presented their results at a scientific seminar at Fermilab. The Large Hadron Collider results will be announced at a scientific seminar at 2 a.m. CDT on July 4 at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.

"It is a real cliffhanger," said DZero co-spokesperson Gregorio Bernardi, physicist at the Laboratory of Nuclear and High Energy Physics, or LPNHE, at the University of Paris VI & VII. "We know exactly what signal we are looking for in our data, and we see strong indications of the production and decay of Higgs bosons in a crucial decay mode with a pair of bottom quarks, which is difficult to observe at the LHC. We are very excited about it."

The Higgs particle is named after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, who among other physicists in the 1960s helped develop the theoretical model that explains why some particles have mass and others don't, a major step toward understanding the origin of mass. The model predicts the existence of a new particle, which has eluded experimental detection ever since. Only high-energy particle colliders such as the Tevatron, which was shut down in September 2011, and the Large Hadron Collider, which produced its first collisions in November 2009, have the chance to produce the Higgs particle. About 1,700 scientists from U.S. institutions, including Fermilab, are working on the LHC experiments.

The Tevatron results indicate that the Higgs particle, if it exists, has a mass between 115 and 135 GeV/c2, or about 130 times the mass of the proton.

"During its life, the Tevatron must have produced thousands of Higgs particles, if they actually exist, and it's up to us to try to find them in the data we have collected," said Luciano Ristori, co-spokesperson of the CDF experiment and physicist at Fermilab and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) . "We have developed sophisticated simulation and analysis programs to identify Higgs-like patterns. Still, it is easier to look for a friend's face in a sports stadium filled with 100,000 people than to search for a Higgs-like event among trillions of collisions."

The final Tevatron results corroborate the Higgs search results that scientists from the Tevatron and the LHC presented at physics conferences in March 2012.

The search for the Higgs particle at the Tevatron focuses on a different decay mode than the search at the LHC. According to the theoretical framework known as the Standard Model of Particles, Higgs bosons can decay in many different ways. Just as a vending machine might return the same amount of change using different combinations of coins, the Higgs can decay into different combinations of particles. At the LHC, the experiments can most easily observe the existence of a Higgs particle by searching for its decay into two energetic photons. At the Tevatron, experiments most easily see the decay of a Higgs particle into a pair of bottom quarks.

The Tevatron is one of eight particle accelerators and storage rings on the Fermilab site. The largest, operational accelerator at Fermilab now is the 2-mile-circumference Main Injector, which provides particles for the laboratory’s neutrino and muon research programs. What is a Higgs Boson? Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the nature of the Higgs boson. Several large experimental groups are hot on the trail of this elusive subatomic particle which is thought to explain the origins of particle mass.





After more than 10 years of gathering and analyzing data produced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Tevatron collider, scientists from the CDF and DZero experiments have found their strongest indication to date for the long-sought Higgs particle. The Tevatron results indicate that the Higgs particle, if it exists, has a mass between 115 and 135 GeV/c2, or about 130 times the mass of the proton.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Higgs Boson (pdf download)

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Hubble, Swift Detect First-Ever Changes in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

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This artist's rendering illustrates the evaporation of HD 189733b's atmosphere in response to a powerful eruption from its host star. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected the escaping gases and NASA's Swift satellite caught the stellar flare.
(Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Hubble, Swift Detect First-Ever Changes in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

An international team of astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made an unparalleled observation, detecting significant changes in the atmosphere of a planet located beyond our solar system. The scientists conclude the atmospheric variations occurred in response to a powerful eruption on the planet's host star, an event observed by NASA's Swift satellite.

"The multiwavelength coverage by Hubble and Swift has given us an unprecedented view of the interaction between a flare on an active star and the atmosphere of a giant planet," said lead researcher Alain Lecavelier des Etangs at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics (IAP), part of the French National Scientific Research Center located at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris.

The exoplanet is HD 189733b, a gas giant similar to Jupiter, but about 14 percent larger and more massive. The planet circles its star at a distance of only 3 million miles, or about 30 times closer than Earth's distance from the sun, and completes an orbit every 2.2 days. Its star, named HD 189733A, is about 80 percent the size and mass of our sun.

Exo-Planet Hot Flareup Astronomers classify the planet as a "hot Jupiter." Previous Hubble observations show that the planet's deep atmosphere reaches a temperature of about 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,030 C). HD 189733b periodically passes across, or transits, its parent star, and these events give astronomers an opportunity to probe its atmosphere and environment. In a previous study, a group led by Lecavelier des Etangs used Hubble to show that hydrogen gas was escaping from the planet's upper atmosphere. The finding made HD 189733b only the second-known "evaporating" exoplanet at the time. The system is just 63 light-years away, so close that its star can be seen with binoculars near the famous Dumbbell Nebula. This makes HD 189733b an ideal target for studying the processes that drive atmospheric escape.




The exoplanet HD 189733b lies so near its star that it completes an orbit every 2.2 days. In late 2011, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope found that the planet's upper atmosphere was streaming away at speeds exceeding 300,000 mph. Just before the Hubble observation, NASA's Swift detected the star blasting out a strong X-ray flare, one powerful enough to blow away part of the planet's atmosphere. (Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

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Tom Campbell: Our Reality Is Information (and Virtual)

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"My consciousness" receives a data stream, therefore I am

Tom Campbell discusses the Universe as a virtual reality and each human as a consciousness receiving a data stream.Humans are virtual creations as is the entire Universe, rendered by something beyond this reality. He begins with the Double Slit Experiment Paradox and later mentions a recent quantum entanglement discovery that confirms his theory.

My Reality = Virtual + Information. Let's go down the rabbit hole with Tom in this interview and discover the world is not as it seems. That is, the Universe is not a physical, objective reality. See tags at end of post for additional information on this subject, including The Universe As a Virtual Reality and the Double Slit Experiment Paradox

Tom Campbell: Our Reality Is Information In this informal interview in Atlanta June 8, 2012, Tom Campbell, author of My Big TOE, expands on the significance of the scientific experiment called the Double Slit in terms everyone can understand.

"If you understand the Double Slit experiment, you understand how our reality works". He continues "Everything we do is not different from the Double Slit experiment".

This explanation is valuable to scientists as well as the general public. Tom takes a difficult subject and applies helpful analogies to clarify the implications of this scientific experiment.



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Dolphin Nebula Swimming Through Space

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The Dolphin Nebula image is surreal. This is known and reported by Space.com as "crescent-shaped planetary nebula SH2-188 glows in wisps of green". Bill Snyder, an astrophotographer, has created an extraordinary image for us to enjoy and ponder.

Bill Snyder reports, "Sh2-188 also known as PNG128.0-4.1 and Simeis22. The Dolphin Nebula, in the constellation Cassiopeia, is a planetary nebula. It is approxmiatly 850 light years from Earth This an asymmetrical shaped planetary nebula."

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Dolphin Nebula

Thanks to Space.com for breaking the story and Bill Snyder for his wonderful image.

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Hubble Space Telescope: Best Images

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Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. NASA & ESA have selected some of the best images, one for each year in service, in the video below. These include images of Saturn and rings, the colorful Orion Nebula, Herbig Haro 2, Messier 100, Shoemaker-Levy 9 Hits Jupiter, the classic Eagle Nebula, the odd and unusual NGC 6826, the red planet Mars, the amazing Ring Nebula, Keyhole Nebula, NGC 1999, ESO 510-G13, the striking Cone Nebula, the legendary Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the surreal Antennae Galaxies, the vast Orion Nebula, the "diamonds" of Messier 9, NGC 4874, the glowing NGC 2818, the symmetric Bug Nebula, Centaurus A, and the Tarantula Nebula.

Hubble Space Telescope - The Best Images From Over Two Decades In Orbit Hubblecast 54: 22 Years In Images. To celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, this episode of the Hubblecast gives a slideshow of some of the best images from over two decades in orbit.




Eagle Nebula


NGC 6826

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Narrowing the Search for Dark Matter

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Scientists have further narrowed the search for a hypothetical particle that could be dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up 80 percent of all the mass in the universe. This video from NASA Astrophysics presents the new results, compiled from two years’ worth of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

Gamma rays are very energetic light, and the telescope looks for faint gamma-ray signals that are generated by a variety of sources, such as gas and dust spiraling into supermassive black holes or exploding stars. But another potential source of gamma rays is dark matter. Although no one is sure what dark matter is, one of the leading candidates is a yet-to-be-discovered particle called a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). When two of these WIMPs meet, the theory goes, they can annihilate one another and generate gamma rays.

There are many possible versions of WIMPs, and they’re expected to span a wide range of masses, producing a range of gamma rays with different energies. Using Fermi, the scientists focused on 10 small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, searching for gamma-ray signals within a specific range of energies. They found no signs of annihilating WIMPs, which rules out certain kinds of WIMPs as dark-matter candidates.




Narrowing the Search for Dark Matter | SpaceRip

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Has James Gates Discovered Computer Code in String Theory Equations? Welcome to The Matrix!

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The Matrix is in programmed control & continues inexorably in the background, whether you are aware of it or not.

Dr. S. James Gates, Jr., a theoretical physicist, the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, and the Director of The Center for String & Particle Theory, is reporting that certain string theory, super-symmetrical  equations, which describe the fundamental nature of the Universe and reality, contain embedded computer codes. These codes are digital data in the form of 1's and 0's. Not only that, these codes are the same as what make web browsers work and are error-correction codes! Gates says, "We have no idea what these 'things' are doing there".

Gates discloses in the second video below, as an aside in a formal interview, that some of his research can be interpreted that we do live in a virtual reality. He describes this as "mind-blowing" and similar to the movie "The Matrix"! Further, he adds, that if someone suspected they did live in a virtual reality, then detecting computer codes would be a way to confirm. He concludes with finding these computer codes in equations that describe our world: "that's what I just proposed!".

What to make of this? There are two issues: 1) if String Theory will ultimately be a viable and therefore proven model of reality and 2) if so, whether embedded coding is in fact within the related verified equations. Michio Kaku has stated "String Theory Is the Only Game in Town" because it is the only testable theory available.

We have argued on this website that the Universe is a virtual reality. If true, then any theory of reality should eventually confirm this, if the theory has staying power and does not succumb to an early death. Accordingly, time is on the side of the simulation hypothesis to be verified first through theory and then via experiments in the long-run. Technology to provide the means to test that the Universe is a virtual reality is the next step.

Strange Computer Code Discovered Concealed In Superstring Equations! "Doubly-even self-dual linear binary error-correcting block code," first invented by Claude Shannon in the 1940's, has been discovered embedded WITHIN the equations of superstring theory! Why does nature have this? What errors does it need to correct? What is an 'error' for nature? More importantly what is the explanation for this freakish discovery? Your guess is as good as mine.




Red or Blue Pill? Take the blue pill, the story ends, you awake in your bed, and believe whatever you want to believe.


Red or Blue Pill? Take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Interview with Dr. S. James Gates, Jr. [Relevant comments begin at about 5:30 in interview] Sylvester James (Jim) Gates, Jr. is a theoretical physicist who received BS (mathematics and physics) and Ph.D. degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the latter in 1977. His doctoral thesis was the first thesis at MIT to deal with supersymmetry. He is currently the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and serves on President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.




String Theory Computer Codes?

Credits Abe (Twitter: @Esq2776abe) for the initial report Johanan Raatz (YouTube: JohananRaatz) for the first video

"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." ~ Werner Heisenberg

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Dark Matter Core Defies Explanation in Hubble Space Telescope Image

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Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520: Dark Matter in Blue


Dark Matter Core Defies Explanation in Hubble Space Telescope Image

NASA: March 2, 2012

It was the result no one wanted to believe. Astronomers observed what appeared to be a clump of dark matter left behind during a bizarre wreck between massive clusters of galaxies.

The dark matter collected into a "dark core" containing far fewer galaxies than would be expected if the dark matter and galaxies hung together. Most of the galaxies apparently have sailed far away from the collision. This result could present a challenge to basic theories of dark matter, which predict that galaxies should be anchored to the invisible substance, even during the shock of a collision.

The initial observations, made in 2007, were so unusual that astronomers shrugged them off as unreal, due to poor data. However, new results from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope confirm that dark matter and galaxies parted ways in the gigantic merging galaxy cluster called Abell 520, located 2.4 billion light-years away.

Now, astronomers are left with the challenge of trying to explain dark matter's seemingly oddball behavior in this cluster.

"This result is a puzzle," said astronomer James Jee of the University of California, Davis, leader of the Hubble study. "Dark matter is not behaving as predicted, and it's not obviously clear what is going on. Theories of galaxy formation and dark matter must explain what we are seeing."

A paper reporting the team's results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and is available online.

First detected about 80 years ago, dark matter is thought to be the gravitational "glue" that holds galaxies together. The mysterious invisible substance is not made of the same kind of matter that makes up stars, planets, and people. Astronomers know little about dark matter, yet it accounts for most of the universe's mass.

They have deduced dark matter's existence by observing its ghostly gravitational influence on normal matter. It's like hearing the music but not seeing the band.

One way to study dark matter is by analyzing smashups between galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe. When galaxy clusters collide, astronomers expect galaxies to tag along with the dark matter, like a dog on a leash. Clouds of intergalactic gas, however, plow into one another, slow down, and lag behind the impact.

That theory was supported by visible-light and X-ray observations of a colossal collision between two galaxy clusters called the Bullet Cluster. The galactic grouping has become a textbook example of how dark matter should behave.

But studies of Abell 520 showed that dark matter's behavior may not be so simple. The original observations found that the system's core was rich in dark matter and hot gas but contained no luminous galaxies, which normally would be seen in the same location as the dark matter. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory detected the hot gas. Astronomers used the Canada-France-Hawaii and Subaru telescopes atop Mauna Kea to infer the location of dark matter by measuring how the mysterious substance bends light from more distant background galaxies, an effect called gravitational lensing.

The astronomers then turned Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to help bail them out of this cosmic conundrum. Instead, to their chagrin, the Hubble observations helped confirm the earlier findings. Astronomers used Hubble to map the dark matter in the cluster through the gravitational lensing technique.

"Observations like those of Abell 520 are humbling in the sense that in spite of all the leaps and bounds in our understanding, every now and then, we are stopped cold," explained Arif Babul of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, the team's senior theorist.

Is Abell 520 an oddball, or is the prevailing picture of dark matter flawed? Jee thinks it's too soon to tell.

"We know of maybe six examples of high-speed galaxy cluster collisions where the dark matter has been mapped," Jee said. "But the Bullet Cluster and Abell 520 are the two that show the clearest evidence of recent mergers, and they are inconsistent with each other. No single theory explains the different behavior of dark matter in those two collisions. We need more examples."

The team has proposed a half-dozen explanations for the findings, but each is unsettling for astronomers. "It's pick your poison," said team member Andisheh Mahdavi of San Francisco State University in California, who led the original Abell 520 observations in 2007. One possible explanation for the discrepancy is that Abell 520 was a more complicated interaction than the Bullet Cluster encounter. Abell 520 may have formed from a collision between three galaxy clusters, instead of just two colliding systems in the case of the Bullet Cluster.

Another scenario is that some dark matter may be what astronomers call "sticky." Like two snowballs smashing together, normal matter slams into each other during a collision and slows down. But dark matter blobs are thought to pass through each other during an encounter without slowing down. This scenario proposes that some dark matter interacts with itself and stays behind when galaxy clusters collide.

A third possibility is that the core contained many galaxies, but they were too dim to be seen, even by Hubble. Those galaxies would have to have formed dramatically fewer stars than other normal galaxies. Armed with the Hubble data, the group hopes to create a computer simulation to try to reconstruct the collision, hoping that it yields some answers to dark matter's weird behavior.


Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520: 1 of 6 Galaxy Collisions Where Dark Matter Has Been Mapped


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