Unknown "Structures" Tugging at Universe, Study Says [ Dark Flow ]

National Geographic News ^ | November 5, 2008 | John Roach

[SunkenCiv]

Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour -- a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger -- a multiverse -- and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland...

Dark flow was named in a nod to dark energy and dark matter -- two other unexplained astrophysical phenomena.

The newfound flow cannot be explained by, and is not directly related to, the expansion of the universe, though the researchers believe the two types of movement are happening at the same time...

The study team didn't set out to explode physics as we know it.

They simply wanted to confirm the longstanding notion that the farther away galaxies are, the slower their motion should appear.

That movement is detectable in data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which NASA says "reveals conditions as they existed in the early universe by measuring the properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation over the full sky" -- radiation thought to have been released about 380,000 years after the birth of the universe.

[SunkenCiv]

The so-called Bullet Cluster of galaxies lies 3.8 billion light-years away. It's one of hundreds that have been found to be carried along by a mysterious "dark flow," an October 2008 study says.

The dark flow is caused by unknown clumps of matter outside the known universe, which are pulling our entire universe toward them, the study suggests. The report hints that, whatever may be beyond the known universe, it's like nothing we know. [Image courtesy NASA/STScI/Magellan/U. Arizona/D. Clowe, et al]

[SunkenCiv]

[NormsRevenge]

Go with the flow, Joe.

[PzLdr]

“You do not know the Power of the Dark Side!”

[allmost]

If the energy is disproportionately distributed, and the matter that we see is is disproportionately distributed, then maybe spacial energy is as well. No need to invent something new just yet IMO.
Hey Civ, can you add me to your pinglist?

[ConservativeMind]

So Science can’t determine how or why the Big Bang happened and it appears they’ve conceded they’ll never know what is “pulling” at everything.

And they laugh at us for believing in God.

[cripplecreek]

I kinda like the idea that our incomprehensibly large universe may be a tiny part of something larger.

[GOP Poet]

a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow

heck. I was just calling it the Obama Presidency and gay marriage. HMMM. I need to kick up my metaphor skills--LOL.

[sierrahome]

And yet in all of this I found my dear sweet wife.

[bert]

Uncertainty is ok.

The crutch of certainty is not required when contemplating the unknown

[dbrew2u]

Strange that man ponders the craziest things. How about instead of worrying about what may lie 16 or 17 Billion light years distant ? Figure out the little things like,how to win back congress ? Or, what the hell happened to the Conservative movement ? Or, why don’t Republicans have any Balls. You know, the small stuff. We can worry about the Universe later.

[Sacajaweau]

Man overestimates his “greatness” believing that everything can be reduced to a known...Such foolishness.

[RichInOC]

“...do I really need to say it?”

[Moonman62]

Scientists keep making progress toward better understanding God’s creation. That doesn’t mean they don’t believe in God. It does mean they don’t believe in ignorance.

[mouse1]

Dark flow - Dark energy - Dark matter

Stop it now, that’s racist.

[cripplecreek]

Well stated.

After all, the big bang theory originated with a Vatican astronomer.

[autumnraine]

Hey Einstein! I’d love to join your string theory ping list!

Thanks

[autumnraine]

You mean my third grade theory of our universe being a skin cell of a enormous giant might be right?!

(haha)

[autumnraine]

Science community: We don’t know how it started, we don’t know why it does what it does, we just know there is no Higher Power that created it or monitors it. Take that as fact!

[allmost]

Worrying about the larger things can give some people perspective. Yes it gives some delusions but the aim at something greater than ourselves is usually a noble cause. obama has used that desire effectively and if you want to talk politics let’s do it ;), I’d rather not pollute this thread though.