Also read more about it on Scientific American's blog.Dark Matter is supposed to be invisible, it is invisible. Using a method called “weak gravitational lensing” scientists were able to construct a map of dark matter even though they couldn’t see it.
How? Researchers studied the light reaching Hubble from far off galaxies. The light had to travel through dark matter in between Hubble and the target, the dark matter and distorted the light slightly along the way. How they know what is a distortion and what isn’t I am not too sure, but they studied these distortions of the galaxies shapes and reconstructed the mass of the invisible matter in between.
Does it really matter (pardon the pun)? Yes it does make a difference; this unseen matter makes up two thirds of the mass of the Universe. Knowing the distribution of dark matter, among other things, will help us understand the evolution of the universe to a degree not before possible.
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