Posted on 08/01/2003 9:20:16 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Stephen Beres writes: Cleaning out my basement, I came across some Dark Matter. I couldn't sweep it up, or vacuum it or anything. It just lay there, very dark. Just kidding. Seriously now, if you had a kilogram of Dark Matter, what would its physical and chemical properties be? Would it be invisible? Containable? Measurable?
In short, how would Dark Matter manifest itself in our world? Would it just sink invisible into the Earth's gravitational field? Is there any way to contain it or study it? How would you know Dark Matter if it were present? Could it be present in small quantities right here and we wouldn't know it? Would it be able to pass right through ordinary matter?
RRB: Astronomers tell us that there is more dark matter than real matter in our galaxy and across the universe, so yours is a fair question(s) -- one that troubles me, too.
I once asked a related question of some very bright physicists on a panel, while they were presenting some important dark matter research. They kind of squirmed. Dark matter is probably made of tiny particles we can't yet measure and don't understand, they had said. And so I asked (I'm paraphrasing myself here): "Since you don't understand the stuff, is it possible it's not made of particles at all, or that the particles are huge, very lightweight particles bigger than this room?" They looked at each other and agreed, yes, perhaps it's not tiny particles.
But -- and this is a pretty important but -- on large scales (in galaxies and galaxy clusters) dark matter behaves like regular matter gravitationally, so they think it's particles. I don't know if they're right, but I believe they're very smart, so in Vegas I'd bet on their answer rather than mine.
There probably is some dark matter in your basement. It's presumed to be everywhere. I wouldn't worry, and I wouldn't count on the vacuum cleaner managing it. Dark matter's local effects are not noticeable or detectable, we're told (I'm withholding judgement on whether this is accurate -- if we don't know what it is, how do we know it doesn't affect us? Maybe it's responsible for transporting car keys to unexpected places in the house). Anyway, all of your sub-questions are largely unanswerable given the current state of the field.
There are some tidbits we can suppose, however: Dark matter probably is not made of any chemicals or elements that we know. Else how can we explain its invisibility? And yes, it is invisible -- at least for now. Scientists have made visible a lot of other things we didn't used to see, though. Is it measurable? Its effects sure are: It holds galaxies together in tandem with real matter, and it bends light. These are the clues that led to calculating that it makes up 85 percent of cosmic matter.
Is it containable? Perhaps there's some in your pocket right now. If scientists can figure out how to keep it there, or move it, then we'll probably know what it is.
A collective of professional research groups and universities plans to build a telescope devoted to studying dark matter and the equally bizarre phenomenon of dark energy. It would start operations in 2011. Sit tight.
Just spray some Anti-matter on it, and wipe it up... problem solved...
Dork Matter.
A fair question, and one that in recent weeks has been much on my mind.............
Boy, what a way to put "Sani-Flush" out of business! Do you have a lot of this Anti-matter stuff? You could be very, very, rich!
If it exists, it's real.
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