A TEAM of astronomers led by North-East scientists have produced the most precise map yet of mysterious dark matter in distant galaxies.

The international team, led by Durham University, created the map using observations from the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope which is in orbit around the Earth.

The observations enabled the researchers to map the amount and distribution of mass within the galaxy cluster – named MCS J0416.1–2403 – which is 4.5bn light years from Earth.

When combined with the cosmic phenomenon known as strong gravitational lensing - the astronomers were able to map the cluster mass distribution in unprecedented detail.

This allowed the team to calculate the distribution of visible and dark matter in the cluster and produce and measure the mass of the cluster with unprecedented precision.

By studying 57 galaxies the astronomers modelled the dark and visible mass within MCS J0416.1–2403.

They found that the cluster was 160 trillion times the mass of our Sun and modelled the total visible and dark mass of the cluster to be 650,000 light years across, making the map the most precise ever produced.

The scientists have calculated that dark matter makes up about 90 per cent of this total mass but the precise figure is due to be published in a separate scientific paper.

Lead author Dr Mathilde Jauzac, in Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: “The depth of the data lets us see very faint objects and has allowed us to identify more strongly lensed galaxies than ever before.

“Even though strong lensing magnifies the background galaxies they are still very far away and very faint. The depth of this data means that we can identify incredibly distant background galaxies. We now know of more than four times as many strongly lensed galaxies in the cluster than we did before.”