The blue smears in this photo, and the shears of light, are evidence of dark matter between distant galaxies. The Deep Lens Survey looks for areas of “weak lensing” where the light from object gets smooshed in one direction by dark matter. To get meaningful results, you need to survey tons and tons of galaxies. And a new project, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, expects to be able to capture even more detailed images of the whole night sky from its perch in Chile. Click through for more pictures, including an awesome rendering of a space/time warp.
