Posted on 05/24/2011 9:21:33 AM PDT by decimon
A Monash student has made a breakthrough in the field of astrophysics, discovering what has until now been described as the Universe’s ‘missing mass’. Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, working within a team at the Monash School of Physics, conducted a targeted X-ray search for the matter and within just three months found it – or at least some of it.
What makes the discovery all the more noteworthy is the fact that Ms Fraser-McKelvie is not a career researcher, or even studying at a postgraduate level. She is a 22-year-old undergraduate Aerospace Engineering/Science student who pinpointed the missing mass during a summer scholarship, working with two astrophysicists at the School of Physics, Dr Kevin Pimbblet and Dr Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway.
(Excerpt) Read more at monash.edu.au ...
I should have known better than to image search for Pia.
The search results are infested with malware. Disturbing on so many levels. I’ll never go there again.
Good for you Ms Fraser-McKelvie!! Some of Einstein’s best work was done while he was a patent clerk.
Breaking News: Universe’s “missing mass” turns out to be a cluster of socks.
>>I should have known better than to image search for Pia.<<
Yikes! I can imagine! (note, I won’t try hehehe)
“It was predicted that the majority of this missing mass should be located in large-scale cosmic structures called filaments - a bit like thick shoelaces”.
If a majority is shoelaces, then the socks are probably the balance.
It consisted of billions of lost socks that somehow wound up behind jupiter. Turns out drier manufacturers accidentally placed a “sock wormhole” in every unit manufactured since 1948.
It got flushed down the cosmic tubes.
“What makes the discovery all the more noteworthy is the fact that Ms Fraser-McKelvie is not a career researcher, or even studying at a postgraduate level. She is a 22-year-old undergraduate Aerospace Engineering/Science student who pinpointed the missing mass during a summer scholarship,..”
LMAO. Another bureaucratic and academic scam busted. Somebody did not get to her in time.
Agreed!
Can she figure this one out: two sock go into the dryer, one sock comes out. Where did the other sock go?
Here's an electrical engineer's perspective on the matter.
I believe that the key question is whether the big bang, from which the universe was formed some billions of years ago, has resulted in an ever-expanding universe which will increase in size indefinitely, or will the universe stop expanding and then begin contracting under the influence of gravity. In the latter case, it is expected that the universe will contract into a singularity which will then "explode", recreating the big bang and starting the cycle all over again.
We know the distances to the edge of the observable universe and thus the volume of space occupied by the mass in the universe. We know the velocity at which the mass in the universe is moving thanks to the red-shift, the change in the frequency of the light reaching earth due to the doppler shift caused by the movement of the distant objects.
Evidently calculations using this data result in an ever-expanding universe because there isn't enough observable mass to allow gravity to pull the whole thing back together again. The favored theory is that the universe will contract back into a singularity, repeating the expansion process followed by another contraction, etc.
In order for this favored theory to hold, there must be "missing mass" that is not being observed. I think I have heard that the amount of "missing mass" is on the order of TEN TIMES the observable mass. That's a lot of missing mass!
The article is suggesting that some of this missing mass has now been observed using x-rays being emitted from the mass. Unfortunately the article doesn't suggest how much of the missing mass has been found.
I thought Boston College had finally released its long awaited study on how many of us in the 60s actually attended mandatory Sunday services.
William Tell: "I think I have heard that the amount... "missing mass" is on the order of TEN TIMES the observable mass. That's a lot.. missing mass!"
So who ever said you need a PhD or fancy equipment to understand all this stuff?
;-)
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