Supersized Balloon In Space May Finally Explain Secret Of Dark Matter

Unlocking the Secrets of Dark Matter with SuperBIT

Have you ever wondered what dark matter is made of? Scientists have been trying to solve this mystery for years, and now a telescope in space attached to a giant balloon the size of a football stadium may help us unlock the secret. The Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) has already sent back amazing images of distant galaxies, and it’s just getting started.

Exploring the Universe with SuperBIT

Launched on April 16 from Wānaka, New Zealand, SuperBIT can climb to roughly 21 miles above Earth’s atmosphere for 100 days. It has already sent back images of the Tarantula Nebula, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy that exists 160,000 light years from Earth. It has also sent back images of the Antennae galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, 60 million light-years from Earth, which are currently colliding.

Smashing Lumps of Dark Matter

SuperBIT will look at clusters of galaxies that happen to be colliding with each other to study dark matter. “Essentially, we’re using the largest particle accelerators in the Universe, to smash lumps of dark matter and see where the bits fly. If dark matter goes ‘crunch’, or if bits are chipped off, we could finally start to learn what it’s made of,” says Professor Richard Massey of Durham University’s department of physics.

The Mystery of Dark Matter

The existence of dark matter has been propounded by scientists to explain gravitational effects that cannot be explained by currently accepted theories of gravity. Scientists posit it accounts for roughly 85% of the matter in the universe. It is referred to as “dark” because it has not been seen to interact with the electromagnetic field. Its existence has been suggested because many galaxies would act differently if there were no unseen matter comprising them.

Mapping Dark Matter with SuperBIT

SuperBIT’s field of view is wider than the famed Hubble Space Telescope; it uses gravitational lensing to map dark matter. Because galaxies have colossal mass, they warp spacetime, and thus galaxies’ images get mildly distorted by the curvature of light, which is called weak gravitational lensing. But the distortions yield information to discover the distribution of matter in the universe, and thus unlock what dark energy may consist of.

The Future of SuperBIT

SuperBIT will be upgraded from its current 1.6 feet aperture telescope to 5.2 feet, adding a wider-angle lens and increased megapixels, thus increasing its capacity for trapping light by 10 times. It cost only $5 million, 1,000 times less than an equivalent satellite mission.

SuperBIT is an exciting new tool for exploring the mysteries of the universe. Who knows what secrets it will uncover next?