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They used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope to study the cluster, known a MACSJ0025.4-1222.

They can see a clear separation between dark and ordinary matter, answering a trying question about whether dark matter interacts with itself other than via gravitational forces, the researchers said on Wednesday.

"Dark matter makes up five times other matter in the universe than ordinary matter," said Marusa Bradac of the University of California Santa Barbara, who led the moil.

"This scrutinize confirms that we are dealing with a to a high degree variant gracious of matter, unlike anything that we are made of. And we're able to study it in a very powerful collision of brace clusters of galaxies," Bradac aforesaid in a statement.

Using optical images from Hubble, the team was able to conclude the distribution of the total mass of both dark and ordinary matter in the cluster using a technique known being of the class who gravitational lensing.

This method uses the wresting that mass causes as light passes by a different object betwixt the viewer and whatever is heart observed. Dark matter cannot be directly seen but it has mass and in this wise gravitational draw apart.

The Chandra X-ray images showed other clearly where ordinary matter, in the form of hot gas, was.

As the two clusters collided and merged at speeds of millions of miles (km) by hour, the eager gas in each cluster collided and slowed down, but the dark matter did not.

The researchers are looking into the past with their observations. MACSJ0025 is 5.7 billion light years away, a light year being the distance light book of travels in a year, or 6 trillion miles.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Cynthia Osterman)