Dark Matter Hairs Around Jupiter

This illustration shows Jupiter surrounded by filaments of dark matter called "hairs," which are proposed in a study in the Astrophysical Journal by Gary Prézeau of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. A hair is created when a stream of dark matter particles goes through the planet. According to simulations, the hair is densest at a point called the "root." When particles of a dark matter stream pass through the core of Jupiter, they form a hair whose root has a particle density about a trillion times greater than average. The size of Jupiter relative to the distance between Jupiter and the hair roots is to scale. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20178

Date

2015-11-23

Photographer / author

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Collection

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

illustration (NASA artwork)

More from this collection: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory photos from the 2010s

Need photos for a whole script? Add Find Any Photo to Claude and ask for this one by its id: 22155.