Posted on 02/15/2019 8:12:19 AM PST by BenLurkin
An invisible force is having an effect on our Universe. We can't see it, and we can't detect it - but we can observe how it interacts gravitationally with the things we can see and detect, such as light.
Now an international team of astronomers has used one of the world's most powerful telescopes to analyse that effect across 10 million galaxies in the context of Einstein's general relativity. The result? The most comprehensive map of dark matter across the history of the Universe to date.
...
"If further data shows we're definitely right, then it suggests something is missing from our current understanding of the Standard Model and the general theory of relativity," said physicist Chiaki Hikage of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe.
We don't know what dark matter is. What we do know is that the gravitational effects we see in the Universe cannot be accounted for by observable matter alone. For example, the rotation speed of galaxies would be quite different if it was based solely on the gravity from observable mass.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
Absolutely. The plasma guys seem to me correct.
Thanks for posting an article that brings out people who are proud of their ignorance.
I didn't know there were so many astrophysicists and quantum physicists here on FR.
Darks matter.
You don’t have to be a physicist and there are lot of books and articles on the subject. All it means is that galaxies and galaxy clusters are spinning faster than the matter we can see (i.e. stars and gas) account for. There are lots of hypotheses, including just something wrong with our understanding of gravity. But other than observation of visible matter, there are no real theories supporting it. So it’s anyone’s guess basically.
Sure does...
anytime you hear the word “dark” in science you should immediately become suspicious. Dark Matter and Dark Energy are mere placeholders to explain away the fact that our calculations based on our current understanding do not match observable reality.
Rather than Dark Matter and Dark Energy both of which we conveniently cannot detect, I propose an alternative hypothesis. Maybe neither exist and our current understanding is simply flawed.
That’s not a knock on Newton. That’s not a knock on Einstein. Each advanced our understanding.....maybe we’re just not as far along in our understanding right now as we would like to think we are.
We can’t see it. We can’t detect it. But we see things being affected by something and really can’t explain it at all.
Dark matter! We are scientists and we are smarter than you!
This really sounds like an SNL skit.
I think He’s playing a game with them. Every time they think they’ve discovered the “God particle” or something-or-other that will unlock our understanding of everything, He simply creates another puzzle.
They send out probes and view in their telescopes looking for signs, breathlessly hoping to prove there is no God.
Meanwhile, he waits for them to open their hearts.
Your first sentence is partially right: Dark matter was born to explain a discrepancy. Unfortunately the rest is WAY off. The discrepancy had nothing to do with distance measurements. It was the fact that galaxies were observed to rotate faster than would be predicted by general relativity.
That leaves two options: either the galaxies have unobsevable matter or general relativity is not applicable to galactic rotations. Both ideas were considered seriously, but dark matter matches reality better than MOND (MOdified Newtonian Dynamics - basically the alternative to GR). MOND does better at explaining galactic rotations but does poorly when applied to larger scales than individual galaxies. DM does well at all scales. DM may be modified or abandoned as more data come in, but it’s not just a myth or a placeholder; it’s the best explanation for what we currently have observed.
There's a whole lot of that on this forum.
Previously unexplained galaxy rotation was addressed with detection of giant black holes at the centers of galaxies.
Leave it to modern physicists to map out something that has never been observed.
You, sir, win the internet for today...
Naw, really? I’ve been saying this for decades. But, it’s good for govey grants!
That’s “dark energy” you are talking about, not “dark matter”.
“Dark matter” is the fudge factor they came up with to explain why galaxies do not rotate as expected according to the equations of relativity (the center should rotate faster than the outer arms, but we see that instead the outer arms and center complete a revolution at the same pace).
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