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DART launch campaign
NASA launch manager Omar Baez narrates footage taken throughout the pre-launch assembly of the Pegasus rocket stages, mating of the DART payload and attachment to the L-1011 carrier jet. (2min 54sec file)
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Pre-launch news briefing
The NASA launch manager and Air Force weather officer brief reporters during the DART pre-launch news conference from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Oct. 25. (15min 35sec file)
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DART mission preview
The DART project manager provides a detailed overview of the spacecraft's rendezvous mission during this pre-flight news conference. (27min 53sec file)
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This date in history
Space shuttle Columbia launches on the STS-52 mission on October 22, 1992 carrying the LAGEOS laser ball and package of microgravity research experiments. (2min 59sec file)
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Full launch experience
This longer-length broadband movie covers the launch of Columbia from T-minus 3 minutes through jettison of the external fuel tank after reaching space. (12min 43sec file)
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Re-entry trail
A space station camera captured this incredible view of the Soyuz's fiery trail during re-entry in the predawn morning sky. (1min 46sec file)
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Hatch opening
Russian recovery forces at the landing site work to open the Soyuz capsule hatch and roll the craft on its side in preparation for the crew's exit. (2min 23sec file)
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Commander exit
Expedition 9 commander Gennady Padalka is pulled from the Soyuz capsule following landing in Kazakhstan. (1min 38sec file)
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Fincke returns
Expedition 9 flight engineer Michael Fincke rests in a reclining chair and speaks to the media about the importance of spaceflight just after exiting the Soyuz. (2min 46sec file)
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Public Service Announcements
The space station's new commander, Leroy Chiao, urges Americans to vote in these Public Service Announcements recorded inside the Destiny Laboratory module. (2min 30sec file)
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Crew news conference
The five crew members aboard the International Space Station answer questions during this in-flight news conference from Wednesday, Oct. 20. (29min 26sec file)
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Expedition 9 review
This narrated movie provides a look back at the six-month Expedition 9 mission aboard the International Space Station with commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Fincke. (8min 24sec file)
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Lonely halo raises questions about dark matter
CHANDRA X-RAY CENTER NEWS RELEASE
Posted: October 26, 2004

Dark matter continues to confound astronomers, as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory demonstrated with the detection of an extensive envelope of dark matter around an isolated elliptical galaxy. This discovery conflicts with optical data that suggest a dearth of dark matter around similar galaxies, and raises questions about how galaxies acquire and keep such dark matter halos.


X-ray and optical image composite of NGC 4555. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/E.O'Sullivan et al; Optical: Palomar DSS
 
The observed galaxy, known as NGC 4555, is unusual in that it is a fairly large, elliptical galaxy that is not part of a group or cluster of galaxies. In a paper to be published in the November 1, 2004 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Ewan O'Sullivan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA and Trevor Ponman of the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, use the Chandra data to show that the galaxy is embedded in a cloud of 10-million-degree-Celsius gas.

This hot gas cloud has a diameter of about 400,000 light years, about twice that of the visible galaxy. An enormous envelope, or halo, of dark matter is needed to confine the hot cloud to the galaxy. The total mass of the dark matter halo is about ten times the combined mass of the stars in the galaxy, and 300 times the mass of the hot gas cloud.

A growing body of evidence indicates that dark matter - which interacts with itself and "normal" matter only through gravity - is the dominant form of matter in the universe. According to the popular "cold dark matter" theory, dark matter consists of mysterious particles left over from the dense early universe that were moving slowly when galaxies and galaxy clusters began to form.

"The observed properties of NGC 4555 confirm that elliptical galaxies can posses dark matter halos of their own, regardless of their environment," said O'Sullivan. "This raises an important question: what determines whether elliptical galaxies have dark matter halos?"

Most large elliptical galaxies are found in groups and clusters of galaxies, and are likely the product of the merger of two spiral galaxies. In such an environment, the dark matter halos can be stripped away by gravitational tidal force and added to other galaxies or the group as a whole.

Therefore, it is difficult to determine how much dark matter the original galaxies had, and how much they have lost to the group as a whole through interactions with their environment.

The importance of the issue of the intrinsic amount of dark matter associated with an elliptical galaxy has recently increased owing to a report by an international team of astronomers led by Aaron Romanowsky of the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. This team found little, if any evidence of dark matter in three elliptical galaxies. Two of these were in loose galaxy groups, and one was isolated. Their result, based on optical data from the 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope on the Spanish island of La Palma, is in clear conflict with the X-ray data on NGC 4555. The optical technique used to search for dark matter in the nearby elliptical galaxies could not be applied to NGC 4555 because it is more than 3 times as far away from Earth.

Either the galaxies observed by Romanowsky and colleagues have lost their dark matter halos through earlier interactions with other galaxies, or their dark matter halos are much more extended, or they formed without dark matter halos. The first option is possible for the galaxies in groups, but very unlikely for the isolated galaxy. The second and third options are still open, but would require a modification - perhaps a major modification - of the cold dark matter theory of galaxy formation.

"This is clearly a question which deserves further consideration," said O'Sullivan. "It seems likely that much more theoretical and observational work on elliptical galaxies will be required before this issue can be resolved."

Chandra observed NGC 4555 with its Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) in February 2003. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington.

Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., formerly TRW, Inc., was the prime development contractor for the observatory. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.