Albert Einstein's age-old theory proved to be correct after scientists discovered a 'fantastic tool' for detecting dark matter in space, leading to a 'revolution in astrophysics'.
Dark matter is a form of unknown matter thought to make up roughly 85 percent of the universe. Its presence is implied in various astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects, which cannot be explained by accepted theories of gravity unless more matter is present than can be seen. French astrophysicist Yannick Mellier described how he used Albert Einstein's unsubstantiated predictions from The Theory of Relativity to detect dark matter in the Universe in his work, Secrets of Dark Matter, shown within Amazon Prime.
In 2013, he said: 'To understand Einstein's theory and how rays of light are deflected in the universe, you have to think of it as some kind of tablecloth with a massive compact sphere on it. At every point where the sphere is, the tablecloth will deform. This deformation is a distortion of spacetime in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. If you spread rays of light, they will deflect under the influence of the space-time warp created by matter. '
Einstein first proposed this idea in an unpublished paper from 1912, then again in a published paper from 1936. The series narrator explained how Mr Mellier used an unproven prediction from general relativity to observe dark matter:
Einstein called this effect gravitational lensing. The object that makes up the lens is dense and massive enough to bend the rays of light. But this phenomenon remained a theory, and it still had to be observed until Yannick and his colleagues did not find something strange in the sky in Hawaii. '
In 1985, Yannick, then a young explorer, arrived at one of the best telescopes in the world, 4200 meters above sea level at the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano. Dr. Mellier explained what inspires proof of Einstein's theory:
“We didn't go there to study dark matter, we went there to detect changes in large clusters of galaxies far from Earth. All of a sudden, we found a very strange structure, like an extended smile. It was more elongated than the galaxy, and, moreover, very distorted. It was unlike any other astronomical object listed in the catalogs, so we faced a huge mystery. '
Dr. Mellier described how the discovery helped to understand the effect of dark matter on the universe:
“We decided to try to interpret this object. The observer and his telescope were here and if the galaxy exactly coincides with the location of the galaxy Abel 370, then we are faced with extremely strong deflections of light rays. This leads to the formation of a gravitational arc. '
Yannick's argument would go even further, because if gravitational arcs existed, then there must also be latent matter that gave galaxies enough mass and density to emit light. By observing the bending of the arcs, he could now see where dark matter is and how it is distributed across galaxies.
Applying this method more broadly, he realized that he had discovered a fantastic tool for detecting dark matter in the universe. After that, a race against time began to be the first to publish this discovery. '
“We published our result, and two weeks later there were two other articles, a British one and an American one, which independently discovered the same phenomenon. This was the revolution of gravitational lensing in astrophysics. For the first time we have found a way to see dark matter, measure and evaluate its presence. '
