Invisible matter, part of the dark matter and energy that takes up most of the universe, has been shown empirically to exist by NASA, via AFP:

Though invisible, astronomers have inferred dark matter exists by observing how its gravity bends the light of more distant background galaxies. “Although the invisible matter has been found before in other galaxy clusters, it has never been detected to be so largely separated from the hot gas and the galaxies that make up galaxy clusters,” said Jee, who works at the Johns Hopkins University.

“By seeing a dark matter structure that is not traced by galaxies and hot gas, we can study how it behaves differently from normal matter,” he said. US astronomers said they made the discovery accidentally while mapping the distribution of dark matter within the ZwC10024+1652 cluster in August 2006. As they studied their data the astronomers noticed a ripple in the dark matter, similar to ripples created when a stone is plopped into a pond.

Jee said that at first he was upset when he found the ring because he thought there was a flaw in the team’s data reduction. He then found research published in 2002 suggesting that the cluster under observation had collided with another cluster one to two billion years ago. The collision occurred along Earths line of sight, and from this perspective the dark-matter structure looks like a ring.

In a computer simulation of a galaxy clusters collision, dark matter first falls to the center of the combined cluster, then moves outward but begins to slow under the pull of gravity. NASA described the phenomenon in a statement as being “like cars bunched up on a highway.”

96% of the universe is said to be consist of “dark” substances, invisible matter and dark energy. Thus the universe isn’t all composed of politicians of the opposition party, or pre-medieval wretches who want to saw your head off if you do not submit to their funny way of thinking. There are wonders in the universe far beyond our necessary, but mundane, concerns. It is good to contemplate them from time to time.

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