The mystery of dark matter – University of Warsaw

Artist's impression of a microlensing event caused by a black hole observed from Earth toward the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light of a background star located in the LMC is bent by a putative primordial black hole (lens) in the Galactic halo and magnified when observed from the Earth. Microlensing causes very characteristic variation of brightness of the background star, enabling the determination of the lens's mass and distance. Credit: J. Skowron/OGLE

Gravitational wave detectors, LIGO and Virgo, have detected a population of massive black holes whose origin is one of the biggest mysteries in modern astronomy. A team of scientists from the OGLE project of the UW’s Astronomical Observatory presented the results of nearly 20-year-long observations. The results were published in “Nature” and “Astrophysical Journal Supplement … Continue reading The mystery of dark matter