The picture above isn’t quite right. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s of a cluster of distant galaxies, MACS 1206 specifically, and you might notice some kinda weird distorted shapes in the mix. In short, astronomers believe this is caused by the gravitational tug of a densely packed region of dark matter. Simply, that gravity pulls on the light that should be taking a straight line to Hubble’s lens, literally bending space-time.

The image is part of the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (with the awesome acronym CLASH), the mission of which is precisely mapping the dark matter distribution of 25 massive galaxy clusters, which make great places to look for dark matter’s gravitational effects due to their sheer size. So far, we’e done six.

In a certain respect, what we’re looking at in the clusters is mostly dark matter. The CLASH results seem to the support the idea that dark matter is the dominant force in these regions. And given that dark matter is estimated to make up 83-percent of all matter in the universe, you could say that it’s likely the dominant force everywhere. At least in terms of gravity — the reason we can’t see dark matter is that it doesn’t interact with light/electricity, not that we know of anyway. To our electromagnetic world, dark matter is the stuff of ghosts.

Connections:

• Trapped Under Ice: Looking for Dark Matter in Antarctica
• Astronomer Stacy McGaugh on a Universe Without Dark Matter
• Hunting the Universe’s Biggest Something in its Deepest Nothing

Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.