Using a combination of powerful observatories in space and on the ground, astronomers have observed a violent collision between two galaxy clusters in which so-called normal matter has been wrenched apart from dark matter through a violent collision between two galaxy clusters.

Two teams of astronomers have used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes to map the distribution of dark matter in a galaxy cluster known as Abell 383, which is located about 2.3 billion light years from Earth.

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Telescope have observed what appears to be a clump of dark matter left behind from a wreck between

A UC Davis graduate student who is leading a study of the collision of galaxy clusters 5 billion light years away discussed the team’s findings today, Jan. 10, in a press briefing at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.

An extremely hot, massive young galaxy cluster — the largest ever seen in the distant Universe — has been studied by an international team using ESO’s Very Large Telescope along with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope.