Douglas Clowe, Ph.D.

克劳博士是一位观测宇宙学家，他证明了暗物质的存在，并在2010年被《探索新闻》（Discovery News）评为“十年来最重要的发现”中的第八位。 Clowe是俄亥俄大学天体物理研究所的一员，主要研究大质量的星系团。

The confirmation of dark matter's existence is a major development in astrophysics, though Clowe's research cannot yet explain what dark matter actually is. Prior to this finding, dark matter was only a theoretical concept based on the observation that galaxies had only one-fifth of the visible matter required to create the gravity needed to hold them together.

Clowe's confirmation of dark matter's existence discounted decades of debate and made a once-theoretical concept a reality. Matter in the universe is determined from the light it emits or from gravitational pull. Light-emitting matter is far less common than the amount of matter inferred from gravity - thus the presumption that most matter in the universe is dark.

Clowe's discovery both confirms dark matter's existence and conventional perceptions of gravity in astrophysics.

His research uses weak gravitational lensing to study galaxy clusters. One such cluster is where he made his most noted breakthrough. The Bullet Cluster is made up of two smaller groups of galaxies colliding. The impact has resulted in the hot gasses filtering to the center of two groups of stars and matter. Clowe was able to measure the mass of the matter by studying the gravitational bend of light around the stars.