By BlueShift | 2026-01-30

Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers have made one of the most detailed, high-resolution maps of dark matter ever produced, offering new understanding of how it has shaped the universe.

The map, published January 26 in the Nature Astronomy journal, shows how dark matter overlaps and intertwines with the ordinary matter that makes up stars, galaxies, and everything we can see, the US space agency said.

Jointly led by the UK's Durham University, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne, the study builds on previous research into dark matter enabled by the Hubble Space Telescope.

It offers a great deal of additional detail, augmenting the Hubble's pioneering map and providing confirmation and fresh insight into how dark matter has shaped the universe, pulling ordinary matter into galaxies and planets.

"This is the largest dark matter map we’ve made with Webb, and it’s twice as sharp as any dark matter map made by other observatories," said lead author Diana Scognamiglio, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"Previously, we were looking at a blurry picture of dark matter. Now we’re seeing the invisible scaffolding of the universe in stunning detail, thanks to Webb’s incredible resolution."

The new map reveals dark matter with "unprecedented precision," said co-lead author Gavin Leroy of Durham University.

It shows "how an invisible component of the universe has structured visible matter to the point of enabling the emergence of galaxies, stars, and ultimately, life itself," he said.

"This map reveals the invisible but essential role of dark matter, the true architect of the universe, which gradually organizes the structures we observe through our telescopes."

Dark matter

"Ordinary matter accounts for only about one-sixth of all matter in the Universe," the study's abstract notes. "The rest is dark matter."

"Wherever you find normal matter in the universe today, you also find dark matter," said study co-author and Durham University astrophysicist Richard Massey, per Phys.org.

"Billions of dark matter particles pass through your body every second. There's no harm, they don't notice us and just keep going."

"But the whole swirling cloud of dark matter around the Milky Way has enough gravity to hold our entire galaxy together," he said. "Without dark matter, the Milky Way would spin itself apart."

Dark matter doesn’t emit, reflect, absorb or even block light, and it passes through regular matter like a ghost, according to NASA.

But it does interact with the universe through gravity.

Using data from the Webb telescope, the study's authors confirm that the degree of overlap between dark matter and ordinary matter cannot be a coincidence.

It is due to dark matter’s gravity pulling ordinary matter toward it throughout cosmic history, they say.

"Wherever we see a big cluster of thousands of galaxies, we also see an equally massive amount of dark matter in the same place," Massey said.

"And when we see a thin string of regular matter connecting two of those clusters, we see a string of dark matter as well."

"It’s not just that they have the same shapes," he said. "This map shows us that dark matter and regular matter have always been in the same place. They grew up together."

Unprecedented detail

The James Webb Space Telescope's map of the section of sky observed for the study, in the Sextans constellation, contains about 10 times more galaxies than maps made by ground-based observatories, and twice as many as Hubble’s.

It reveals new clumps of dark matter and captures a higher-resolution view, according to NASA.

Researchers looked for dark matter by observing how its mass curves space itself, which in turn bends the light traveling to Earth from distant galaxies.

To refine measurements, they used Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), along with other space- and ground-based telescopes.

When the universe began, regular matter and dark matter were probably sparsely distributed.

Scientists think dark matter began to clump together first, and that clumps of dark matter pulled regular matter together, creating regions with enough material for stars and galaxies to begin to form.

In this way, dark matter determined the distribution of galaxies in the universe, and played a role in creating the conditions for planets to eventually form.

"This map provides stronger evidence that without dark matter, we might not have the elements in our galaxy that allowed life to appear," said study coauthor Jason Rhodes, a JPL astrophysicist.