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This composite image shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies, and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520, formed from a violent collision of massive galaxy clusters. Starlight from galaxies is indicated in orange. Green indicates hot gas, and blue indicates mass, most of which is dark matter.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope are mystified by a merging galaxy cluster known as Abell 520 in which concentrations of visible matter and dark matter have apparently come unglued.
A report on the Hubble observations, published in the Astrophysical Journal, raises more questions than answers about a cosmic pile-up that's occurring 2.4 billion light-years away.
"We were not expecting this," the study team's senior theorist, Arif Babul of the University of Victoria, said in a news release. "According to our current theory, galaxies and dark matter are expected to stay together, even through a collision. But that's not what's happening in Abell 520. Here, the dark matter appears to have pooled to form the dark core, but most of the associated galaxies seem to have moved on."
The dark core was first detected in 2007 during a survey aimed at measuring the masses of 50 galaxy clusters using data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
The discovery presented the perfect opportunity to map the distribution of visible vs. dark matter in the cosmic mess. Studies have shown that we can see only about 15 percent of the matter in the universe. Most of the matter that exists around us can't be seen directly, but can be detected only by its gravitational effect. Scientists don't know what dark matter is, but they suspect it's an exotic class of subatomic particles that can interact only weakly with the kinds of matter we can see.
Dark matter is thought to provide the invisible "scaffolding" for structure in the universe, gravitationally binding galaxy clusters into a cosmic web. Those clusters get so massive that they bend the light of distant galaxies like a lens. By analyzing those subtle deflections of light, it's possible to come up with a map showing where the dark matter lies. That's what astronomers did with Abell 520 — first with the telescope in Hawaii, and then with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.
The results contradict what scientists thought they knew about dark matter. In a previous study of the Bullet Cluster, 3 billion light-years from Earth, astronomers found that concentrations of dark matter blasted through the scene of a collision, with their associated galaxies tagging along. Meanwhile, waves of hot, X-ray-emitting gas clumped up in the middle.
In the case of Abell 520, the situation is completely different: The galaxies sailed through the collision, but the dark matter piled up in the middle, along with the hot gas.
Researchers were hoping that Hubble would resolve the mystery first posed by the detection of the dark core in 2007. No such luck.
"We know of maybe six examples of high-speed galaxy cluster collisions where the dark matter has been mapped. But the Bullet Cluster and Abell 520 are the two that show the clearest evidence of recent mergers, and they are inconsistent with each other," James Jee, an astronomer at the University of California at Davis who is the lead author of the Astrophysical Journal paper, said in a news release from the Space Telescope Science Institute. "No single theory explains the different behavior of dark matter in those two collisions. We need more examples."
Jee, Babul and their colleagues propose several possible explanations for the discrepancy. One explanation might be that the dynamics of the Abell 520 collision are more complex than the Bullet Cluster's crash. Maybe multiple collisions, involving three or four galaxy clusters, have led to the dark matter pile-up.
Another possibility is that there's actually lots of ordinary galactic material in the core, but it's just too dim to be seen, even by Hubble. That would suggest that the super-dim galaxies in the core have somehow formed far fewer stars than normal galaxies.
The most unsettling scenario proposes that there are different kinds of dark matter, and some of those kinds are "stickier" than others. Abell 520 might have a particularly sticky kind of dark matter that interacts with itself and clumps up like a wet snowball.
The astronomers behind the Abell 520 observations are now planning to run computer simulations of cluster crashes to find out whether there's an unusual set of conditions that could produce those observations and still fit current theory. "My colleagues tell me the likelihood is nil," Andisheh Mahdavi, a member of the study team from San Francisco State University, said in a news release, "but now we have the responsibility to go and do the hard work to check the simulations."
If the simulations aren't successful, the mystery might have to be left for particle physicists to mull over. Some hope that experiments such as Europe's Large Hadron Collider and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, installed last year on the International Space Station, will eventually shed additional light on the dark matter mystery.
"I'm just as perplexed as I was back in 2007," Mahdavi said. "It's a pretty disturbing observation to have out there."
Update for 5:40 p.m. ET March 2: The picture of Abell 520 served as this week's "Where in the Cosmos" picture puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook page this morning, and it took only a few minutes for Ryan Marquis to figure out what the image was all about. "It appears the dark matter and galaxies aren't anchored as previously believed," he wrote.
I'm sending Ryan a pair of 3-D glasses as a token of my appreciation. It turns out Ryan's a fellow space blogger who posts his items on 46BLYZ. We're glad to have him as a Cosmic Log correspondent, and hope that more of you will join our Facebook community. That's where you'll find the next "Where in the Cosmos" puzzle, a week from now.
Correction for 9 p.m. ET March 5: The original version of this item had the wrong first name for SFSU's Andisheh Mahdavi. I regret the error and extend apologies to the professor.
More about dark matter:
- Crazy cosmic lens focuses on dark matter
- The darkest mystery of them all
- Dark matter mapped in 3-D detail
- Gallery: Dark matter revealed!
- Search for dark matter on msnbc.com
- ... And what about dark energy?
In addition to Jee, Mahdavi and Babul, the authors of "A Study of the Dark Core in A520 With Hubble Space Telescope: The Mystery Deepens" include H. Hoekstra, J.J. Dalanton, P. Carroll and P. Capak.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
""It's a pretty disturbing observation to have out there.""
Simple. Quit looking.
Dark matter is a fudge factor that makes existing equations "work".
The problem is that dark matter does not exist.
What does exist are errors in our current understanding of the universe.
Our fundamental assumptions are flawed in some way.
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@UnitedStates1776 amen brother. the most disturbing thing about a "blob of dark matter" is that so-called scientists actually believe that's what they're looking at.
dark matter is a man-made theoretical band-aid meant to cover the hole in our understanding of the true nature of our universe, wholly ignored and hubrisly rejected by mainstream "science"
youtube search: "nassim haramein crossing the event horizon"
and get ready to understand everything
many of nassim's theories are in peer review at university as we speak and he will, i have no doubt, be a nobel laureate very soon
US1776 - Dark matter is easily proven through it's gravitational effects on visible objects. You may be thinking of dark energy, which is completely different.
They don't offer Nobel prizes in what Nassim Haramein is peddling. No Nobel soon - no Nobel ever.
I can find zero peer-reviewed papers by Haramein, and find zero papers referencing his work.
@ united and spotted
"Our fundamental assumptions are flawed in some way." and " hole in our understanding of the true nature of our universe" what your describing is called "god" or "religion"
I must admit if it turns out that there is no dark matter than it will have god like qualitys as in "dose not exist"
Your confusion is showing. This has nothing to do with God or religion. This is a matter of a poorly understood and often misrepresented (both within scientific circles and otherwise) placeholder in scientific theory that has developed a life of its own through collective lazy thinking. The use of the term "matter" in the name of the placeholder has had the unfortunate effect of confusing some into trusting that it must indeed be a form a matter since, perhaps due to their thorough indoctrination that science has gotten certain things largely figured out, they find themselves incapable of performing the mental gymnastics needed to conceive of the alternative possibility: That our understanding of gravity at the galactic scale and beyond is deeply flawed and incomplete. So flawed, in fact, that it fails to account for 85% of what we observe. When a theory fails that hard, it's time to seriously reconsider what we think we "know".
Whether there is matter which does not emit light is not in question, the fact that something that is invisible is bending light is not in question, the fact that galaxy rotation curves do not match the observed distribution of luminous matter is not in question, etc.
I have some question about the existence of a ubiquitous, massive, weakly interacting particle which has not been observed from cosmic sources and has never been made in a high-energy physics experiment (and which does not correspond to any standard model particle, nor any of their expected super-partners).
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I wish I were smarter and could better understand what everyone is talking about.
Although I've found that with terminology in other fields that I do understand, the words often don't really mean anything--they just sound impressive and make the uninitiated believe the expert knows something. Gastritis--you have an upset tummy, that will be $300 please. And take this $40 medicine that will make your nose turn black and fall off, but your upset stomach will be okay by tomorrow as it would have been anyway.
This stuff isn't like that, is it?
jock59801, just because gravitational lensing effects are observable does not mean that it is attributable to this mythical "dark matter". Fizzies keep dreaming up more and more and more mythical particles to try and shoehorn things into our existing equations. Right now we have more mythical particles than real particles. It's time to stop all this nonsense and go back and revisit our basic underlying understanding of how the universe works.
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Merely ttalking equations seat of the pants explanations, makes for very little value, callling everything nonsense, of novalue, worthless and then claiming to go back to basics this that and the other. Really do you all see value in that? Try to details your assumptions, outline your thinking, and bravely present to those who may want an intelligentdialogue, enjoy a better explanation, and build the type of information that move us from doing nothing to doing something. Sitting in warm poop, soon becomes a cold, dark uncomfortable matter.
Everybody here has a good point, and everybody is colliding... dark matter? However, there is another factor to gravity that everybody must consider, and that is time. You have a lens that may be made of time in the middle of these galaxies. While it is popular to find particles, why not waves to explain what is going on?
The fabric of the universe is made from a single concept of space-time and there is no way to break up this and treat each piece independently, so we live with the perception of space as unchanging and we yet need clocks to detect the passing of time. To capture time in a bottle, and save it to make wishes come true, is poetic, but not going to make a lense to bend light.
Thousands of scientists (closer to tens of thousands) have collectively done the theory, conducted experiments, peer reviewed the research articles, and come to the collective conclusions that we have today regarding cosmology and astrophysics (we're not done, but much of it is firmly established, only to be outstripped by more general theory in physics). We're talking about a field of work that effectively screens for extremely intelligent people because of the rigor of mathematics and physics. Researchers have dedicated their lives to their work. And suddenly, after a few minutes (or hours) of thinking, you've decided that the scientific community must be entirely wrong. Yet you've never read a single research article. You don't hold a PhD is astrophysics. Probably not a masters. And probably not even an undergraduate degree in physics.
I'm constantly surprised by how people expect scientific research to be as accessible to a layperson as is to the experts.
I'm in complete agreement with US1776. Ever since the idea of dark matter was proposed, I thought it sounded eerily like the ether debacle of the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Back then, wave theorists suggested and believed completely that there must be a fluidic substance permeating all space so that light waves could travel through it. They made the assumption that their theory that light was a wave was correct, and built up the ether model around that assumption to explain an oversight. There were even educational tools built to help students visualize 'ether waves' compared to other waves (my alma mater had one from 1905 on display) and of course, all of it was wrong.
Now, the same thing is happening again. It's funny, in a sense. I feel like I'm watching history repeat itself right before my very eyes and I can't help but wonder how these cosmologists who are so certain that darkmatter exists would respond to the notion that our entire understanding of the universe might be wrong (considering that we've seen less than 1% of the observable universe, it very likely is!). All the wave theorists were just as certain that light was a wave 100 years ago, too.
When you start making observations which completely contradict your theory, it's time to find a new theory.
Theoretical alternatives to dark matter and dark energy will now get a fair hearing. Here is the reasoning which leads to the invention of dark matter. We observe that there are stars in all galaxies that are revolving around there galactic centers faster than can be accounted for by the total gravity produced by the observable mass of the galaxy. If we insist that an increase in gravity can only be accounted for by an increase in mass, then we must conclude that there is a substantial amount of matter present which we cannot see (dark matter). If this assumption is false, and there are other natural mechanisms within galaxies which can amplify gravity, then there is no need for dark matter.
What other possible mechanism could there be? How about a billion billion metric tons of stars, zipping around a galactic core singularity at several thousand kilometers per second, altering the curvature of space-time inside the galaxy, and thereby amplifying gravity in the direction of the galactic core. Just one alternative.
There is simply no reason to insist that we know the one and only way to amplify gravity. Dark Matter is just sloppy science taking the easy way out. This new utterly anomalous observation is proof of that.
Nick, thank you for reminding us of the debacle of the Luminiforous Ether. It's exactly analogous to dark matter. If we insist that light is a wave the luminiforous ether is necessary. If we insist that gravity can only be amplified by an increase in mass then dark matter is necessary. Just as we found out that light s not just a wave in some medium, so to we will discover that there is more than one way to amplify gravity.
@nick
it's called the scientific method postulate a theory and then prove it wrong "if you can" so of coarse you seen it before we do it every day.
we know there is an effect ( gravitational lensing ) so form a theory of you own and "do" the science and be sure to hold your self to the same standard as you do others..... "if you have ever been wrong you will never be RITE"
I'm sure the rest of us can't wait to rip you theory apart with our ignorance
Noah R
That's what I say to myself all the time. It's really silly to see some of it. At times frustrating because of how some post comments as though they are fact. To me it's a clear indication of how people don't have any knowledge of science.
Three words: Giant Space Amoeba!
US1776;
Our basic understanding of how the universe works is the four fundamental forces in the universe. Gravity is one of these forces.
not radical,
Come back when you understand Quarks, Leptons, Gauge Mesons and SuperGravity.
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I don't see any more point in responding to the dark-matter deniers than I do in responding to evolution deniers or global-warming deniers. Suffice to say, it's there. The evidence is incontrovertible.
What I wonder is, why can't there be a supermassive black hole or two in the dark core, as a result of a close core encounter in one of the collisions? Wouldn't that explain the observations? There must be some reason this idea won't fly, if the experts think the chance of a conventional explanation is nil.
Bob, If you think dark matter is as well established and proved as global-warming and evolution, you just don't have any business trying to have opinions about scientific matters. The fact of the matter is that we simply don't know if dark matter exists. The evidence only proves that there is more gravity inside galaxies than we predicted. This offers no indication of what mechanism might be generating the excess gravity. All the evidence to date proves is that there is a need for some such mechanism. We may one day find some evidence indicating that dark matter incontrovertibly exists, but that day is incontrovertibly not today.
John, there are at least 4 distinct arguments for dark matter:
1. internal dynamics of galaxies.
2. internal dynamics of clusters.
3. formation of clusters from cosmic microwave background fluctations.
4. relative amplitudes of cosmic microwave background peaks.
What we don't know is what dark matter *is*.
bob it's not perfect but you are on the right track
Bob, I understand that points one through four demand an explanation. One possible explanation is the existence of dark matter which may prove to be true in time. All I'm saying is that dark matter is not the only possible explanation, and I don't consider it the best candidate.
We know from special relativity theory that accelerated motion deforms space-time. What if the effects we see are a by-product of the accelerated motion of visible matter through space-time? If space-time is quantized rather than being a true continuum perhaps the motion of billions of stars inside a galaxy stirs space-time into a kind of Whirlpool which would tend to tilt the fabric of space-time in a time-like direction towards the galactic center. This would amplify gravity in the direction of the galactic center without any need for dark matter.
We have observations which can be explained by the existence of dark matter, but we don't know enough about the nature of space-time to state definitively that this is the only possible explanation. The claim that dark matter has been proved to be real is simply premature. The anomalous observation in the article confirms that it is premature.
Here is another example of what I am saying. Modern physics has reached a consensus that space-time as a whole has no overall curvature. We live in an infinite open euclidean space which is only deformed locally by matter. This is thought to be conclusively proved by measurements of the curvature. The problem is that our instruments do not measure with infinite precision. For example, if the curvature of space-time is 30,000 times smaller than previously predicted as Dr. Tipler's theory requires, then our instruments are simply not up to the task of measuring it at this time. We may still be living in a finite closed universe which is simply far larger than we thought.
I think science has gotten quite reckless about what it claims to be proved of late.
UnitedStates1776 Start over? Really? Where? Science builds on itself. The areas you reference are at the leading edge of what we think we know.
A practical comment ..... If this "blob" is 2.4 billion light years away, we are seeing "the blob" as it was 2.4 billion years ago. It is not like that now. It will take another 2.4 billion years for "humans" to 'see' what is going on with "the blob" today.
By then the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies will have collided, and Earth may very well not exsist in any case. After that, there's also that "being fried and vaporized by the expanding, dieing sun" to worry about too. To be created as mortal beings is a blessing.
i blame Obama
I blame both sides for cutting funding over time on all the space programs.
That is a nice looking cheezburger, it's smiling at me !
Republicans hacked hubble.
Yes, vote out the GOP and their perversions of the universe!
can't mate, they f*****g own the universe...
Hooey. (IMHO)
Much more likely. (Again, IMHO). Just as I have claimed, over and over in many posts on the 'Vine. It's nice to see it actually considered as a viable option.
@obbop:
And do what? Just say, "Jeeebus did it!", and move on?
That's it!! "Dark Energy" = The hot breath of dead zombie Jeebus. There, problem solved.
Oh, but wait, if he's a zombie, then his breath wouldn't be hot, in fact, I don't think zombies breathe at all... Dang! For a second there I thought I had it all figured out.
Not on topic, but just for your info; no Buck Rodgers without bucks. Remember that it is the whole population of America that gives the bucks to the space program and other physics research; it would probably be a little more productive if offensive language could be curtailed. Religion has nothing to do with science, but if the general population thinks that your aim is to bash or undermine their religion, they will cut science altogether, in the same way that a student cannot get gov't loans or grants to take any theology courses. Imagine when that becomes equally true of science. I don't want to see that happen, so please, voice opinions in a more civil manner?
It's the Q
Elizabeth,
I believe in time we will come to understand that religion and science are more intertwined. I consider God to be "The Ultimate Scientist". But than one has to believe there is a God first.
Problem: Christianity has become a man-made religion holding on to Dark Age beliefs that they are separate. At that time they believed anything scientific was from "The Devil'.
Elizabeth,
A student can take out federal student aid to cover theology classes, and religion classes. In college I took Japanese Religion, and in my masters degree I took Religious Survey for Educators. All were covered by student loans. I had friends who majored in different types of theology, all covered by federal student aid. The gov wont give you financial aid if you have a drug felony though. Though I agree with what else you have posted. Dark Matter and Energy is still a theory, it's not a Law. But it's the leading theory right now, until they can either prove it or disprove it will stay that way. There are many scientists looking at different angles, but they're not going to stop searching. For everyone who thinks that dark matter is dumb and they should stop researching, they won't stop until they find a reason to. No good reason has come up yet. Science is super fun and interesting. You should see what they're finding out about dogs now! It's amazing.
Dark Matter is worth about a billion dollars an ounce. The Moon is covered with it. There is one place on Earth where it cann be found (two, one is a vault in Houston)...Al-
I've got this dark matter here. It's got to be worth everything you've got. Some dimwits may call this stuff coal, but you and I know it's priceless and worth the mere million I'm asking for it.
It might be, once it turns to diamond.
As usual what scientists think they know and what they know are 2 different things.
George Boodle, 1858 of so named the principle Duality corresponding to [X] where X represents part of something and [1-X] where 1-X represent the other part. These are symbols not mathematical equations, if [X] represents a what scientists knows then [1-X] represents what scientists do not know.
A good scientist will practicee this principle every where thay can.
The Antalects of Confus [True knowedge is to know what know and to know what you do not know.]
It's still more than the bible thumpers know about science.
So the center of the universe is filled with a pile of '@!$%#' - dark blob matter?? So, what else is new. Now, if the headline was worded differently my comment would have been otherwise!
Such a small thing a title, the expression "the center of the universe" is quite a familar statement, but a proper understand of what we should already know must be that there is no center of the universe, this utterly important for simple explainations.
Maybe everything is dark matter. Or once used to be dark matter. They say at the very moment of the event of the big bang nothing became everything. Perhaps dark matter is simply nothing and our conception of the word nothing isn't the absence of something but rather this thing we call dark matter.
I don't care what that is in the picture, it's nice to look at, even if it might be a false color picture, why are they having heart attacks? If they knew all the answers they wouldn't be scientists would they? They would be gods. Right? So lets have a little mystery to whatever is left that we don't know. Do we HAVE to know everything?
You are under the delusion that we nearly know everthing or some how are approaching that curious state. The real fact is that as every day goes by knowledge or at the very least opportunity for knowledge decreases. The expansion of the universe at the beginning is unknowable, and the expansion at the present day make if more unknowable. There is only one positive choice, that is to recognize that Time is the only quanity we can waste and not know it. (Any place where information has to overcome light speed will remain unknown.)
Contrary to popular belief, scientists are still mystified by almost everything in space. Sure, they know how physics is supposed to work out there, but nobody has ever proven it conclusively. They guess at most phenomenon they observe, adding theories to try and explain what they don't understand, and then fight about whose theory is 'correct' and whose is wrong. They just don't know. Their jobs depend almost entirely on government grant money, so they need to write articles and get them published (usually in obscure journals that you or I cannot even buy), and they solicit money for their colleges and universities if they already don't work directly for the government. In short, they get to guess a lot, play with incredibly expensive equipment that normal people will never have access to and write papers trying to convince others doing the same thing that their theory is better than the last one. Except for the writing and getting published, the jobs are basically a dream for a physics geek, and the pay is obscenely high for what they actually deliver.
That's the funniest thing on this page....
> (usually in obscure journals that you or I cannot even buy)
Sure, you can. All scientific journals would be happy to accept your money, as the publishers would love to make a profit.
Science is the sort of thing that is made complicated by amateurs seeing things that are not there. Scientist go to the greatest trouble in developing simple intuitions, but rarely can create a explanation simple enough for amateurs to keep simple. Science is about simple, but who would know.
the use of the adjective "elegant" when applied to a validated theory seems to indicate an intuitive element,
i believe in this intuitive organ.................. even if my grasp of the science is wanting. when i see, in 2 or 4 decades the rise of dark matter and dark energy, strings in 11 dimensions. all to plug up inconsistencies, or confusion. i stay skeptical.
About the only aspect of your rant that IS correct is that "scientists" Are guessing, that is making up theories about observable data. But at least "they" are the experts with their collective noses in the "matter!(pun intended) Funny about the "obscenely high pay" though... And remember that pay keeps people alive, pays for college funds, gets spent in the same stores YOU shop in...etc..(Makes me wonder just how much you pull down if you think researchers have high pay...)
Interestingly, the 'scientists' who get paid the most are the ones who come up with climate-denial 'science', or are paid by corporations for other things - all of these actually deny the validity of the scientific method in some form or fashion. Real scientists get paid enough to make a decent living, but that's pretty much.
Even more interestingly, every single improvement in our living standards in the next few decades is going to come from real research of this form.
@Spotted Marley:
New Age "physics" sells lots of books, but it is pseudoscience, and pseudoscience is garbage.
Wha, wha, whaaat? So Deepak Chopra and the Dancing Wu Li masters of quantumagical water are selling... snake oil? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!!
Keep grinding away at the problem fellas! I have so much respect for scientists!
Truly the most Herculean task in the universe; know everything about it!
Dark Matter could be the material ejected by a black hole. This would explain the large volume of Dark Matter found in the universe. This would also explain the observations of Abell 520. The Dark Matter is not moving because the black hole(s) that is ejecting the material is stationary.
As matter is accelerated to almost the speed of light and ripped apart while entering the black hole the bits could be anywhere and anywhen. All these random fragments are reappearing all over the galaxy containing the black hole. If they appear next to something massive they are absorbed. If they appear a long way away from anything they just sit there being mass. Based upon charge they could all be repelling each other and not making new matter unless something extreme happens. This random appearing of matter could explain the temperature of the universe, background noise and get rid of the big bang. Maybe the universe is just constantly recycling itself and there was no big bang.
Ripped apart? This is not fully described? We have get past tthe first sentence.
thats when the universe does speed and mushrooms at the same time.
Dark matter does not exist....if it did and the only way it interacts with ordinary matter is through gravity then where are all of the dark matter stars? Where are the dark matter solar systems? How come our Sun is not composed of 85% dark matter? How we are not composed of 85% dark matter? Why can we account for the mass of objects in our solar such as the Sun, Jupiter, etc. without having to invoke dark matter?
Gravity alone is not enough to make a cloud of particles collapse into a star; you also need interactions between the particles to make them slow down when they rub against each other. Regular matter has these interactions, in the form of electromagnetic forces, but dark matter is not thought to respond to electromagnetism. Therefore, dark matter could exist and yet not form dark matter stars.
But these are theories: Quantum physics shows that quanta appear and have pressure even in a very thorough vacuum. "Rubbing together" is not likely to beat quantum mechanics as any kind of force.
Quantum fluctuations do create pressure in a vacuum, but that pressure is equal in all directions so the net force is zero. It wouldn't compress a cloud of dark matter into a star.
" I don't understand . Therefore it's not true . " Typical reaction from the uneducated .
Right there with you Jonathan! Contray to what mike-2557769 is trying to imply, I think you do understand and have at least a rudimentary grasp of astrophysics. Gravity drives virtually everything and if this supposed "dark matter" stuff has to be postulated in order to explain the motions of far off galaxies and galactic clusters, then it should be present and detectable nearby as well... but it isn't.
Therefore, it is fairly simple to logically assume that something else is wrong. Perhaps the calculations and calibrated measurements that allow scientists to estimate the radiance and therefore the possible total mass of these far off galaxies is off kilter in some way that we do not presently recognize?
I dunno, we'll see. Maybe when they finally build and launch the Webb telescope (if it ever actually happens) we'll get some better data to work with that may overturn this entire "dark" house of cards.
Our brain is our limit. how can we understand things that are billions of light years away when we don't fully understand our own brain, our only tool.
And how do scientists guess we can see 15 percent of the matter in the universe? Wouldn't you have to know the size of the whole universe first?
That would be brain science, and we don't know the percentage used, but if seem very, very, very tiny, negligible as far as can be detected.
.
I could write a thousand words around a single dot. That's a theory.
987 to go.
that's science.
A very good point.
I'm sure Sheldon knows the answer!
I'll go with the 'unsettling scenario theory'; Because it does seem that all Dark Matter is NOT the same (ie by degree of density, just like soil or oil); And heck, it even looks brightly more planetary like rather than dark energy!!!!!!
What exactly is a "degree of density", is something you get from a University.
So Rich, what is the difference between the universe and a university? Ity.
One is bigger without the drugs. This also explains the fact the most comments are made by people looking in the science section for the antidote to life problems. University is a one word expression used by the British to shorten discourse.
The universe is made up of two kinds of substance: matter and doesn't matter and most of it doesn't matter.
It matters very much. And time is of the essence (perhaps). Or, it's later than you think. And you can send me all those little numbers that don't matter in your bank account, as long as they are not negative numbers...
And, as a matter of fact, what matters to me may not matter to you.
ken-2082649, that is best one I've heard all day! :)
Amusing, but sophmoric...(just what does that say about MY sense of humor?)--S--
What is mind? Doesn't matter.
What is matter? Never mind.
Let's get real. No one has the slightest clue as to what dark matter is, or if it really exists. I didn't say it doesn't, I just said no one knows for sure what's going on out there.
I have a glob of dark matter on my desk. It's called a black rock. I also have a real tasty piece of dark chocolate that I'm about to eat.
give me some, please.
Well if it does exist, it's the clumpy wet kind you have to worry about
I've never seen a clumpy wet thing that doesn't exist.
The first comment might be right, we shouldn't be looking at the clumpy wet dark matter
@dave b001 - thank you! "collective lazy thinking" is right. I let scientific american expire this time around after reading on too many Dark Matter or Dark Energy article that told you nothing. If scientist A comes up with a theory needing a fudge factor "Kdark" to make the galaxies work. Scientist B- Z shouldn't go around talking about the existing Kdark like its a theory unto itself. Especially when its by "all accounts" 80% of the universes mass! I mean come on you can make up virtually anything - people toss around dark energy and dark matter like its a factual item. Dumping the label would probably be a good idea.
So what is it bosons, or nomad planets or brown dwarves or tiny black holes or cheese whiz?! I mean seems like MANY a physicist should be really going at this with an open mind, so who can blame anyone for looking to the fringes for ideas. One Stephen hawking or Tyson utter anything about it its burned into popular culture as some boring fact.
And this isn't about religion or politics or conspiracy theories, its about a BIG gap in knowledge that scientists don't seem to admit. To me if there is gap in knowledge that WHY we have scientists and they should be excited about figuring it out, not saying "yup, another UFO, cool".
There is a massive amount of theoretical effort going on to understand dark energy, dark matter, etc., it just never makes it to the mainstream press. Follow http://arxiv.org/list/gr-qc/current and you'll get an idea how many different ideas are being tossed around, and plenty of them are unconventional too.
Cotterthan -- it's always been the case with humans. Someone utters an idea, and it becomes fact. Science is no more immune to that starting point than religion/politics. All religions started as a made-up idea upon which more complex facets were hung. Without any proof (or disproof), those ideas prevail even today. The same occurs in authoring any work of fiction. The one place where Science differs is that scientists argue about the statements of 'fact' -- show data to beef up your story... or someone else shows data that contradicts the story, and the story must change. (Religions don't hold themselves to this standard -- to do so would mean exposing the facts to sunshine. Faith is about not seeking affirmation with facts, but making ones mind at peace without challenge. The difference between challenging all facts and not is the difference between science and religions/politics.
Gotta give ya props there QV!! That's about the most accurate/concise desc. i've ever had the pleasure to read/comprehend.
Centuries ago, the Ptolemaic astronomers of ancient Egypt invented a system for tracking and predicting the movements of the known planets in the sky. It relied on a series of adjustments called epicycles to explain thing like the periodic retrograde motion of Mars from our Earthly perspective. The system worked decently well, but was horribly complicated with epicycles stacked upon epicycles. The Catholic church liked it a lot, regardless of it's complexity because it fit nicely with their view of the cosmos in that Earth was the center of everything with the holy heavens high a bove and the cursed pits of hell buried deep below.
Then along came these clever guys, Kepler, Brahe, and especially Copernicus, and they figured out and mathematically proved that the epicycle system was all wrong, that Earth wasn't the center, but instead the Sun was, and lo and behold the entire edifice evaporated into the simple and elegant Solar System that we know today. The Church however faught this new idea tooth and nail, even going so far as to arrest and jail Galileo for declaring that it was true.
The present cosmic scenario with all this hoo-hah about 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' seems much the same to me; i.e. nothing but modern versions of "epicycles" which are conjectured and postulated in order to explain the motions of far off galaxies. Perhaps someday soon a modern Copernicus will take a fresh look at things from a different perspective and reveal a new and more elegant solution.
The scientific experts will never find the answer in a telescope lens - "Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing (Isaiah 40:25-27)". "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16)."
Well you're not invited to the atheists' demonstration, so there! :P
Doug - Thank you for your light-hearted response. We are all exactly the same, the word of God says that we "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Our only hope is by placing our faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross to pay for our sin. If we reject that and God Himself, we are left with Psalm 14:1 - "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good." I would love to be invited to your demonstration that we might reason together.
I'm sure anyone can go, it's a public place outdoors.. but I wouldn't expect to convert anyone to religion :D
LOL Doug-- Yeah he wants to 'reason' when he starts by saying
"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good."
Nothing unreasonable there.
@stayingintheword - That was funny.
The thing about people like you that bothers us the most is that you think because we don't believe in god we therefor have no morality or sense of right and wrong. We don't believe in god or the afterlife, so therefor we have to be the best @!$%#ing people we can in the only life we got. We have morality but we question. Learn to question!
Good morning ebnv,
It is difficult when you jump into the middle of a discussion only to claim that I "started" with "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good."
The starting point (Post #29) is always Scripture. As a fallen human race the best we can ever come up with when left to our own opinions is something far less than God's truth. All of humanity is called to submit to the truth of Scripture (John 17:17). "Reasoning" takes place among us when we set aside our prideful opinions and learn God's truth together.
Hope you can hear this.
StayingintheWord are you here to talk about the article or off topic religion? If you're here to advertise religion I would suggest you leave. It's like me going into a belief forum and taking trash. It has no place in this topic.