NASA scientists recently came to an unexpected conclusion. It turned out that the vast space between galaxy clusters receives illumination from sources unknown to modern science. Astronomers became interested in dark interstellar space and decided to assess whether it really is so dark, using the capabilities of NASA's New Horizon space mission, which flew more than 6.4 billion kilometers from the Earth (50 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun). Scientists have obtained an interesting result - the illumination of interstellar space is twice as high as it should have been when illuminated from sources known to science.
New Horizon's mission was forexploration of the dwarf planet Pluto. However, back in 2015, the spacecraft flew past the planet and set off on a long journey, continuing to send data to Earth to explore the Universe. The New Horizon spacecraft has moved away from the Sun and other sources of "optical pollution" that prevent the tracking of weak optical signals inside the solar system.
Ideal for explorationillumination conditions, New Horizon, using standard equipment, conducts a continuous analysis of the degree of illumination of the far corners of the Universe. As a result, it turned out that the intensity of light emanating from objects known to earthlings (galaxies, star clusters and individual stars) is two times less than the real one tracked by New Horizon instruments.
Currently, scientists cannot be suresay where the "extra" light in the universe comes from. It is assumed that dim dwarf galaxies may exist on the "outskirts" of the Universe, which even the Hubble Space Observatory cannot detect, and there may also be large accumulations of cosmic dust that interfere with research. This phenomenon may be associated with mysterious dark matter - a form of invisible matter that causes gravitational attraction.