News in Brief
American Physical Society meeting
Gas sheds light on dark matter, plus cosmic ray clusters and blue-light imaging in the news
American Physical Society April Meeting, Anaheim, Calif., April 30–May 3
Gas map
A 3-D map of gas in the far reaches of the universe could shed new light on dark matter. Using a 2.5-meter telescope with a wide field of view, Anže Slosar of Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York collected light from 14,000 bright, distant objects called quasars. Just as the moon illuminates clouds at night, quasar light reveals clouds of hydrogen gas in space, Slosar reported May 1. By mapping out variations in the density of this gas, he hopes to learn more about the universe's expansion 10 billion to 12 billion years ago — and the role of dark energy in accelerating this expansion. —Devin Powell
Cosmic ray hotspots
