YALE UNIVERSITY
New Haven, Conn. — The universe’s funhouse mirrors are revealing a difference between how dark matter behaves in theory and how it appears to act in reality.
Dark matter is the invisible glue that keeps stars bound together inside a galaxy. It makes up most of a galaxy’s mass and creates an invisible scaffold that tethers galaxies to form clusters.
Dark matter does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. It does not interact with any known particles. Its presence is known only through its gravitational pull on visible matter in space.
Although dark matter is lightly smeared throughout the universe, it is heaped in regions of space called galaxy clusters. Each of these massive clusters, held together by gravity, is made up of about 1,000 individual galaxies — each of which carries its own dollop of dark matter.
In a new study in the journal Science, Yale astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan and a team of international researchers analyzed Hubble Space Telescope images from several massive galaxy clusters and found that the smaller dollops of dark matter associated with cluster galaxies were significantly more concentrated than predicted by theorists.
The finding implies there may be a missing ingredient in scientists’ understanding of dark matter.
“There’s a feature of the real universe that we are simply not capturing in our current theoretical models,” said Natarajan, a senior author of the study and a professor of astronomy and physics at Yale. “This could signal a gap in our current understanding of the nature of dark matter and its properties, as this exquisite data has permitted us to probe the detailed distribution of dark matter on the smallest scales.”
Astronomers are able to “map” the distribution of dark matter within galaxy clusters via the bending of light the galaxies produce — a concept called gravitational lensing. Like a funhouse mirror, gravitational lensing distorts the shapes of background galaxies that appear in telescope images of cluster galaxies. The higher the concentration of dark matter in a cluster, the more dramatic the observed lensing effects.
The researchers used images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, coupled with spectroscopy from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, to produce high-fidelity dark-matter maps.
A 3D view of the data showed the presence of dark matter hills, mounds, and valleys. From this perspective the mapped dark matter looks like a mountain range, with peaked regions. The peaks are the dollops of dark matter associated with individual cluster galaxies.
The especially high quality of the study’s data allowed the researchers to test whether these dark matter landscapes matched theory-based computer simulations of galaxy clusters with similar masses, located at roughly the same distances.
What they discovered was that the simulations did not show any of the same level of dark-matter concentration on the smallest scales — the scales associated with individual cluster galaxies.
“To me personally, detecting a gnawing gap — a factor of 10 discrepancy in this case — between an observation and theoretical prediction is very exciting,” Natarajan said. “A key goal of my research has been testing theoretical models with the improving quality of data to find these gaps. It’s these kinds of gaps and anomalies that have often revealed that either we were missing something in the current theory, or it points the way to a brand-new model, which will have more explanatory power.”
Natarajan has spent more than a decade confronting theoretical models of dark matter with data from gravitational lensing. “The quality of data and the sophistication of models have only now converged to permit stress testing of the cold dark matter paradigm, and it has revealed a crack,” she said.
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Natarajan said the team, which includes researchers from Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark, plans to continue stress testing theories of the nature of dark matter. The study’s first author is Massimo Meneghetti of the Observatory of Astrophysics and Space Science in Bologna, Italy.
Isn’t the obvious explanation that dark matter simply doesn’t exist. Other explanation have to be found for the rotation of galaxies.
I agree Lars, another explanation may be that our current understanding of gravity has flaws.
Yeah, the “gnawing” factor of ten in the mass of the universe is a bit gnawing too.
Black matter is fairy dust. It is just so obviously a made up quantity to balance equations which seriously fail to match observations.
They hypothesise giant rings of this magic dust surrounding galaxies to account for differences in rotational velocity which are not what they “should” be.
This is so obviously contrived, it is hard to see why they invest so much time in defending it. At least this high quality observational data will be of use to anyone developing an alternative hypothesis , like the presense of electric fields.
Feynman said that if the observation disagrees with the theory, the theory is wrong.
No matter who said that, it’s sort of obvious.
Dark matter / Dark energy is the modern day ultraviolet catastrophe. Ultimately someone will discover a new paradigm that explains it.
Michael Zorn
September 15, 2020 at 11:18 am
In consideration of Dark matter, the problem is even worse.
In consideration of Dark matter, these clever academic egg shape guys have completely departed
and void of the science concept.
Still no matter how appealing or real the proposition looks like, it still firmly standing in the realm of hypothetical and theoretical.
But it is actually served as a matter of fact, non disputable… with no any physical evidence for support, what so ever.
Even when the theoretical part of it is the most bizarre and perverted ever as for the basic means of physics… ending up with contemplation of things like dark energy and dark light.
When and where the hypothetical part only borne out of a validation process of models where the data input happens to be 2D and the output is a 3D result.
Technically the hypothesis is simply a way to address the error outcome from a validation process of the model through proper firm Newtonian physic’s test.
We have a condition there as per means of a specific model validation test, where the theory explaining it, or attempting to explain it, completely infringes and violates the physics of the very test validation that highlights the point of this very condition in the first place.
Far worse than climateriat science or the novel virus pandemic spinning.
CO2 is real, and the novel corona virus is real too, none of this two standing as hypothetical entities.
But still Dark matter served as real, indisputably so, beside the fact that it still is hypothetical… in it’s main stand… with it’s theory that actually directly violates even the proposition of the very hypothetical “existence” of such condition.
Oh, well, maybe your statement more concise, more polished and straight in its point than mine….
🙂
Frazier wrote:
“Dark matter / Dark energy is the modern day ultraviolet catastrophe.”
Dark energy exists… it is postulated to be that universe-wide pool of maximally-entropied energy known as quantum vacuum zero point energy. Since energy doesn’t generally interact with other energy except via constructive and destructive interference (it is a ‘wave’ (which is actually a spiral… a sinusoid is a circular function, a circular function spread over space-time is a spiral), after all), we don’t see photon interaction with the quantum vacuum (except for qvzpe setting c, the ‘speed limit’ of light in vacuum). At most, since energy can also warp space-time, we might see lensing due to zpe, but that’s about it.
Dark energy also has radiation pressure, which is postulated to be the cause of the expansion of space-time. Energy flows from stars, spreads out throughout the universe, interacts with matter, becomes maximally entropied, and thus becomes a part of the quantum vacuum zero point energy field. The universe has only two options to relieve the radiation pressure caused by this process… either manifest matter, or expand. Right now, it is most energetically-conservative to expand… at the beginning of the universe, it was more energetically-conservative to manifest matter, which is where all the matter we see came from.
Dark matter I’m not so sure actually exists. If it does, it has to be ionized homoatomic matter (with no net magnetic dipole moment, and thus unable to absorb or emit radiation (except for very high-energy photons (in the MeV range) which can excite the nuclear structure of the matter directly)).
LOL@Klimate Katastrophe Kooks
September 16, 2020 at 7:39 pm
————-
Very interesting comment.
But still got to say, even when most probably the saying simply too common and basic.
Most probably all means and merit and outcome there pointed in your comment, most probably and most likely due to wrong medications taken.
Wrong medication is a real big huge shite… these days.
cheers
Well at least we don’t need Dark Energy to offset the effects of Dark Matter.
Epicycles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle
“A discrepancy. . between observation and prediction is exciting” to astronomical science because it shows major inadequacies in the computer models. Observation carries the day.
Except for AGW ‘scientists’, whose slavish worship of the computer model ‘idols’ they created with their own hands (Isaiah 2:8) blinds them to the observation of what is real.
Another possibility is that there is no dark matter holding galaxies together, because galaxies are actually spinning themselves apart.
The “problem” goes away if age of universe is far less than assumed.
Yep, aether is so 19th century, so lets call it “dark matter” now.
Dark matter is so 20th century we all know this is almost a word for word description of The Force. May the Force be with you.
Iron: “The Force” is so seventies. Let’s bring it all the way forward to 2020, and call it white privilege.
Unfortunately, that means leaving behind a great slogan, “dark matter lives matter”.
Apparently something called Quantised Inertia does explain the rotation of galaxies without needing to invent dark matter. Whether it is correct in its other predictions is still to be determined…
We invented it because we can’t make the motion of the galaxies fit our theory of gravity without filling 99% of the universe with imaginary stuff that exerts gravitational force but is not detectable by any other means; not unlike the angels that once carried the heavenly bodies across the heavens.
+100!!!!
How do we know that a lot of “dark matter” isn’t just dust and plasma that we can’t see? I would say that would actually be dark matter.
Because of the mass required. A sufficient mass dust & plasma to generate the gravitational effects observed would be enough to visually obscure – or at least noticeably dim – anything behind it (from an earthly observer’s perspective) – and thus the *indetectable* “dark matter” would be detectable long before the gravitational lensing effect.
We have two pieces of data – one more direct than the other. The first is that while our solar system obeys Kepler’s law (proposed before the law of gravity but derivable from it), almost all galaxies do not. The second is that gravitational lensing based on Newton’s law is stronger than it should be based on the estimated mass of the galaxy. Thus dark matter was proposed. Very conveniently, like the neutrino, it explains everything. Unfortunately, data are now at the level where the proposed model does not explain all the observations. My question is why the clouds of dark matter around each galaxy do not coalesce? Dark matter attracts visible matter and I assume it attracts itself so it should collapse. If it doesn’t attract itself, then why is it so conveniently associated with visible matter?
LCW: I don’t believe that Dark Matter was theorized in response to this otherwise unexplained gravitational lensing.
I believe it was theorized because the stars in our galaxy were hanging together and rotating, instead of flying off solo into space, but the gravity associated with the known, recognizable mass was not enough to hold these stars in the realm of the galaxy.
I am not sure when gravitational lensing came into the story.
I thought ‘dark matter’ was needed to explain the orbital speeds of object peripherally distant from galaxy centers? The lensing effects were observed much later.
Dark matter was a simple, logical, and convenient explanation, and if more recent observations now question that explanation, it is time to move on to the next theory. Exciting times indeed.
I don’t quite understand all the ‘clever’ people who ‘already knew it didn’t exist’ but had not managed to put forward an alternative explanation. (and, saying, “Newtonian physics don’t apply to other galaxies” is not an explanation, it’s just one more vague theory.)
It has never been shown that dark matter exists, let alone is needed to explain the Universe. They never actually ruled out electromagnetism (EM), which is a force 10^34 times stronger than gravity. As they specifically ignore the presence of cold, non-emitting matter and only discuss matter they can see (glowing, hot matter), they knowingly ignore a huge portion of the Universe.
Instead of considering everything out there, they cobble up a boogeyman, dark matter (and infer that it must be clumped in the region of galaxies), and then boogey energy and boogey force, and pretend they are explaining the Universe. It makes total sense that they cannot detect and do not understand dark matter’s behavior as IT DOES NOT EXIST.
All bodies passing through a medium pick up or lose charge, particularly through a gas or the gas/plasma of space. To assume as dark scientists do, that the Universe is neutral charge everywhere is negligent. As matter cannot be had without inherent charge (quarks and electrons), why would large objects not be subject to the same var der Waals forces experienced by small particles, such as atoms and molecules. It is truly myopic to not address the fact that the weakness of gravity is simply a marginal effect from van der Waals interactions. Until that is proven wrong, there is no reason to accept the existence os a fourth force, let alone dark matter, which is used to cobble up extra gravity to explain the Universe.
There is a lot of work left to do but it means stepping back and satisfying Occam’s Razor in an honest manner. There are ways that it could be tested and until this work is done, imagining a whole addition dark physics is stupid. The same is actually true of the Big Bang hypothesis (not a theory as it has never been proven, only assumed). The Steady State Universe was never ruled out and if one understands the EM nature of the bodies out there, 99+% of what we see can be easily explained and even reproduced in the laboratory. Again, Occam’s Razor was ignored. This is true job security as, in both cases, they are studying something either does not exist or is simply wrong. More funding, please.
How does EM bend light?
EM can bend space-time …
Here’s how:
You drive power into space-time from multiple points in space with time varying voltages that are inconsistent with the speed of light. For example, drive two points in space separated by a quarter wavelength with the same phase which would otherwise only be possible if the speed of light was infinite. To drive power into space-time, you need to drive a 52K ohm (Z0/a) load impedance, rather than Z0, where a is the fine structure constant. When you drive 3 points equally spaced along a unit wavelength circle, you can create the EM signature of a mass less photon of that frequency with the mass of the field generator hidden within it. At least, that’s what my theory predicts …
Chas Higley says, “they knowingly ignore a huge portion of the universe.”
I say, “they also don’t account for clouds.”
Mosher drives by with a one word reply-“wrong” and a link.
Dark matter is most easily explained as an imprint on the space-time curvature occupied by galaxies that arose at the same time as the super massive black holes at their centers.
This would make Dark matter and its associated super massive black hole a standing gravitational wave that arose from an initial collapse that far exceeded the speed of light just as the speed of light was becoming a constraining attribute of the Universe.
In other words, both inflation and a collapse exceeding the speed of light were concurrent in the very early Universe.
A spherically symmetric distribution of stars acts gravitationally as if all the mass were at the center, as seen from the outside. The interior of a spherical shell of gas is field-free (the equivalent of Gauss’ Law for the interior of a spherical charge distribution).
However, a star at the edge of a flat spiral galaxy like NGC 4565 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4565 ) or the Milky Way (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way ) is like a test charge outside an infinite line charge: even though the force varies inversely as the square of the distance between point charges (stars), the force from the line charge varies inversely as the distance only (see http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/elelin.html ).
Therefore, a star just outside a flat disc of hundreds of billions of stars will appear to be attracted much more strongly than it would if all the mass of stars were all at the center of the galaxy. This is a major reason for the so-called “missing mass” (Dark Matter).
This same argument would apply in the interior of the spiral galaxy: first consider, say, a star at 80% of the radius of the disc, which would appear to be pulled more strongly than by Kepler’s Third Law. Now add a ring of stars just outside the test star. Its mass would NOT give rise to zero net force, because it is not spherically distributed, but in a concentric flat ring/washer.
The net outward pull of the nearby stars of the outer ring is NOT balanced by distant stars on the other side of the ring which pull inward, so there is a net decrease in the centripetal acceleration. Since this does not affect the orbital speed, v, which is tangential, the orbit must move outward to a larger r (since centripetal acceleration a = v^2/r is independent of the force law with distance). This increases the observed value of v even more from that expected by Kepler’s Third Law.
In addition, the galaxy rotation curves (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve ) as mapped by the 21 cm spin-flip transition (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line ) show neutral hydrogen atoms well outside the visible disc of stars that make up galaxy M33. Presumably there would also be primordial neutral He-4 atoms formed shortly after the Big Bang, making up another 33% or so of the mass of hydrogen (or 25% of the total mass of the visible universe).
Because the nucleus of He-4 consists of 2 protons with spins paired, and 2 neutrons with spins paired, there is no analog to the 21 cm hydrogen line observable through radio telescopes. This Helium-4 would be largely unobservable by spectroscopy, although as non-exotic “dark matter” it would exert a gravitational force.
What about the yellow line seen in the visible spectrum of an electric discharge through low pressure helium gas? In the emission spectrum, that yellow line is emitted when an outer electron falls from the third shell to the second shell; for this to occur, the electron has to be in the third shell to begin with, which can occur when the atom is bombarded with electrons at several thousand volts, or by very short wavelength UV light. In deep space, the He-4 atoms would be in the ground electronic state, with both electrons in the first shell. No emission of visible light.
OK, then why does the red hydrogen-alpha line show up in the emission spectra of nebulae like M42 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula )? That red line is emitted when an electron falls from the third shell to the second shell of a neutral hydrogen atom, but the atoms are boosted to higher energy states, and even ionized, by UV light emitted by hot young stars forming in the Nebula. No hot young stars, no UV, no red emission. But the hydrogen atom, with unpaired electron, although “dark” at visible frequencies, can be observed with radio telescopes tuned to 21 cm wavelength.
So there is no need for exotic forms of DARK MATTER (as WIMPs or MACHOs), or Modified Newtonian Mechanics to explain the rotation speeds of stars in spiral galaxies. Just unmodified Newtonian mechanics applied to flat discs of stars. This conclusion was also reached at https://www.astro.umd.edu/~richard/ASTRO620/QM_chap5.pdf (if the link doesn’t work, Google “circular velocity and rotation curves qm_chap5”). A flat disc of stars with a central bulge in the galaxy gave a velocity vs distance curve similar to that of a spiral galaxy with a large spherical halo of “DARK MATTER”. Occam’s Razor allows us to dispose of the DARK MATTER Halo as an unnecessary hypothesis, like the Luminiferous Ether.
The same arguments might apply to clusters of galaxies, if they are not spherical, but formed in discs or strings (not to be confused with string theory for elementary particles). I do not know if this is relevant to the calculations involving gravitational lensing…
There is a very simple, old and straight forward explanation indeed. Mach’s principle assumes nothing else but space being defined by matter. Or in this case, any movement trough space is only a movement relative to other matter. Mach’s principle inspired Einstein to build his theory of relativity and from it, later on, the “Lense-Thirring-Effekt” was derived. It predicts that space around rotating masses will rotate as well. The effect depends on the how “dominant” in defining space time a mass is, and it will be strongest around massive black holes.
Anyhow, it is easy to see how the outer arms of galaxies, where huge masses all move in the same direction, must very effectively pull space along with them. Logically it has to be. Of course then relative speed to “space” will be much lower, than it seems from outside. Thus there is absolutely no need for additional gravity to a galaxy in shape.
Oooh, that’s a good hypothesis… we’re viewing the galaxies in one reference frame, but they’re actually in a different frame where their apparent motion relative to their gravitational attractors is actually lower due to frame-dragging.
Are there any tests being done of this hypothesis?
Not that I would know. In fact I am still searching for any considerations of this, apart from my own. There may be good reasons to refute the idea, but not even considering it seems a bit strange..
What if galaxies are not rotating, they are just dispersing stars from the central mass similar to a Catherine Wheel.
What you say is correct. The problem is we keep theories that are dead. Stone cold dead.
Dark matter is not the explanation for the galaxy angular momentum anomalies.
There is more than one anomaly. The first spiral galaxy anomaly is the rotational speed of spiral galaxies does not drop with distance from the centre of the galaxy.
The second anomaly is a hard paradox.
Observational it has been shown that spiral galaxies gain angular momentum as they grow. There is a tight relationship with spiral galaxy mass and angular momentum.
With the BB mechanisms to produce angular momentum, there should be no relationship with mass of the galaxy how much angular momentum it has.
The observed spiral angular momentum in spiral galaxies should peak at a much, much lower average value with no increase for large spiral galaxies.
3. The third spiral galaxy is the spiral bulge problem or bulge paradox.
Simulation indicate spiral galaxies should have huge bulges in the center of the spiral galaxy and hence look more like elliptical galaxies. The bulge is a region where there is rotation in all directions (not restricted to a disc) just like elliptical galaxies.
In fact, it has been found that 20% of the spiral galaxies are bulgeless, including our own Milky Way galaxy.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.3015
BULGELESS GIANT GALAXIES CHALLENGE OUR PICTURE OF GALAXY FORMATION
BY HIERARCHICAL CLUSTERING
We conclude that pure-disk galaxies are far from rare. It is hard to understand how bulgeless galaxies could form as the quiescent tail of a distribution of merger histories.
Recognition of pseudo bulges makes the biggest problem with cold dark matter galaxy formation more acute: How can hierarchical clustering make so many giant, pure-disk galaxies with no evidence for merger-built bulges?
The Bang mechanism cannot explain the existence and angular momentum of spiral galaxies. Or the percentage of all galaxies that are spiral (70%) rather than elliptical (30%).
Galaxies according the BB theory were formed from gas clouds collapsing and collisions with other galaxies.
What creates angular momentum in the BB theory?
Spiral galaxy angular momentum was long ago hypothesized to originate from gas cloud torque when the galaxy initially formed.
Based on this mechanism, as noted below in Disney’s paper, the galaxy angular momentum should be random, primarily determined by random circumstances (gas cloud torque) when the galaxy formed and hence should be completely independent of galaxy mass. (i.e. The spiral galaxy would gain mass in the future via mergers maintaining the initial angular velocity as it grows).
What is observed is spiral galaxies gain angular momentum directly proportional to their mass.
The implication of this finding is that spiral galaxies mysteriously gain angular momentum as they grow in mass.
There are two questions/anomalies:
1) As noted, there must be some mechanism that stops/inhibits the merger of spiral galaxies. Wet mergers (random mergers of two galaxies with stars) will produce elliptical galaxies or elliptical like galaxies and will produce random sized galaxy bulges. That is not observed.
Wet mergers will most definitely not cause the angular momentum of a galaxy to increase in direct proportion to the spiral galaxy’s mass.
What is observed is that spiral galaxies show a continual spectrum of growth with a bulge that grows in direct proportion to the mass of the super large object in the center of almost all galaxies.
What that indicates is the grow of the spiral galaxy is somehow connected with the grow of the super massive object at the center of almost all galaxies.
2) If spiral galaxies do not grow by wet mergers, how then do they grow?
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0811/0811.1554.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7216/abs/nature07366.html
https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.1554
“Galaxies appear simpler than expected
Galaxies are complex systems the evolution of which apparently results from the interplay of dynamics, star formation, chemical enrichment, and feedback from supernova explosions and supermassive black holes1. The hierarchical theory of galaxy formation holds that galaxies are assembled from smaller pieces, through numerous mergers of cold dark matter2,3,4. The properties of an individual galaxy should be controlled by six independent parameters including mass, angular-momentum, baryon-fraction, age and size, as well as by the accidents of its recent haphazard merger history. Here we report that a sample of galaxies that were first detected through their neutral hydrogen radio-frequency emission, and are thus free of optical selection effects5, shows five independent correlations among six independent observables, despite having a ….
… This implies that the structure of these galaxies must be controlled by a single parameter, although we cannot identify this parameter from our dataset. Such a degree of organization appears to be at odds with hierarchical galaxy formation, a central tenet of the cold dark matter paradigm in cosmology6.
…Consider spin alone, which is thought to be the result of early tidal torquing. Simulations produce spins, independent of mass, with a log-normal distribution.
Higher-spin discs naturally cannot contract as far; thus, to a much greater extent than for low-spin discs, their dynamics is controlled by their dark halos, so it is unexpected to see the nearly constant dynamical-mass/luminosity ratio that we and others14 actually observe.
Heirarchical galaxy formation simply does not fit the constraints set by the correlation structure in the Equatorial Survey.”
“This could signal a gap in our current understanding of the nature of phlogiston and its properties, as this exquisite data has permitted us to probe the detailed distribution of phlogiston on the smallest scales.”
Or is dark matter simply black holes on a scale not predicted?
I have the same question. Have black holes been ruled out as the repositories of the missing mass? They could also explain the observance of gravitational lensing.
Greater mass in the center of a galaxy would increase orbital speed in the central region of a galaxy compared to the outer regions.
For black holes to be the answer, there would need to be a ring of micro black holes surrounding each galaxy.
Bob boder
September 15, 2020 at 3:36 am
In consideration of dark matter versus black holes, if I am not wrong, in means of physics as per concept of mass, they stand as extreme opposites of each other.
Black holes – as per mass,
extreme beyond even infinity, as/for congestion and concentration of matter and therefore energy.
(the most ever infinitely dense mass in consideration of space and volume of space, as per it’s theory).
Dark matter – as per mass, extremely light towards the infinity factor as per congestion and concentration of matter and therefor energy.
(the most ever infinitely “light” mass in consideration of space and volume of space… as per it’s theory)
Technically the dark matter condition consist rightfully as a discovery,
where black holes as a condition consist simply as a figment of hot or blazing hot imagination in steroids,
no clause of discovery to consider there in consideration of black holes… what so ever…
only a condition of “crazy monkeys” in steroids pretending to do science.
Just saying, do not capitalize on it.
cheers
Super massive galactic black holes and what’s perceived as Dark matter can only have been created concurrently and most likely during inflation. Galaxies would have then evolved in the resulting gravitational potential well that captured primordial matter ‘burped’ out during its own formation.
Refreshing to have scientists trying to validate their models.
Do they include embedded magnetic fields in their calculations?
@Larry Plume Silen
“Isn’t the obvious explanation that dark matter simply doesn’t exist. Other explanation have to be found for the rotation of galaxies.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-dark-alternative-theory.html
https://www.quantamagazine.org/modified-gravity-theory-passes-a-critical-test-20200728/
https://astrobites.org/2020/08/17/the-alternative-to-dark-matter-may-be-general-relativity-itself/
… In other words, “dark matter” is more like an “explanation of strange mass effects”, not something that has been actually observed. The “missing mass” explanation is just one of many possible explanations.
missing mass is like “missing heat”, it means you goofed your models.
Better spend another $billion looking for dark matter just to make sure. /s
Yes I know those ideas. Personally I think electromagnetic forces are much more important than previously assumed. “Filaments” observed on all astronomical scales could indicate electrical effects.
excerpted comment:
OH MY, ….. and here I wasa thinking that all “periodic comets” were visible to all observers.
Why does it need to be “matter”?
There are also theories about “dark energy”. But energy per se does not create gravity. Only mass. So, it is assumed that the observed gravitational anomalies are due to some kind of “dark matter”>
Space-time curvature manifests both mass and energy. Mass is not a necessary requirement for space-time curvature to exist. The existnce proof for this is that space-time curvature must be manipulated for crafts like the tic-tack and others to behave as they do.
E/c^^2 = M
New Flogisto.
“There’s a feature of the real universe that we are simply not capturing in our current theoretical models,”
……… try using climate models they can find anything you want.
Cb: Respectfully disagree on the “anything you want” part, but it will work great if you want the real universe to look like a hockey stick.
While I admit my ignorace in the details of many of these theories, I have for long not believed in dark matter, which has the curious property of never being close enough to Earth so that, should it end up being normal matter, we would be able to see it. It is always something far and remote. We cannot notice any of its supposed gravitational efects in the movements of the planets of our own solar system. Mysteriously, it is forever gone from here.
IMO what they call dark matter is nothing more than normal matter located in the vast space between the stars, in concentrations that are not yet big enough to be observed from our distance but, with enough time, may trigger the appearance of new star systems. There must be a critical mass that once reached makes them keep growing and growing exponentially until they become a new star by absorbing other “dark matter” in their vicinity, i.e. other asteroids (still we are talking geological time here). Until then they are just pieces of rock floating in the inmensity of space, moving so fast compared to their size and so far from others that there is no way they can have a meaningful impact on the light that we receive from further away stars. It is not that they don’t interact with light, we just do not have a way to detect that minimal interaction. Space is mostly empty after all. And the reason why we don’t find so many of such rocks in our solar system is that our sun and planets already captured most of the ones in the vicinity, or sent them away through gravitational interactions with the planets. I am sure that a spaceship that moved far far away from the solar system towards another star would find much higher ammount of asteroids on the way there than inside the solar system.
The flaw in your conjecture is that based on gravitational measurements, dark matter accounts for 90%/b> of all matter in the universe. If it were really just diffuse common matter, it would be detectable.
Not necessarily. Diffuse common matter with no net magnetic dipole (homoatomic) and no electrons (ionized) cannot interact with electromagnetic radiation, by and large… atoms and molecules are ‘harmonic oscillators’ which interact with resonant EM energy… no net magnetic dipole and no electrons takes away the electronic mode and vibrational mode quantum state interactions (homoatomics have no rotational mode quantum states), meaning only very high-energy photons (in the MeV range and above) can interact with that matter (since that high an energy can directly excite the nuclear structure of the atom or molecule).
This may account for the relative dearth of observed high-energy photons (in addition to the usual interactions with common matter which lower the number of high-energy photons we observe).
Here we go again.
More models that don’t match data.
What a surprise.
At least they admit that and trying to figure out what’s wrong with the model rather than twist the data to match the model. Credit where it’s due.
They have data, they construct a model to explain the data.
They get more data, it doesn’t match the model. They admit that the model is broken and try to figure out either how to fix the existing model, or create a new model.
That’s how science is supposed to work. Nobody ever said that the first model must be completely correct.
It looks like in THIS case, it’s real science being done. I especially liked that he appeared excited that the models were proven WRONG.
In these fields, you make your name by discovering something new and explaining it.
Just reconfirming past discoveries gets boring, fast.
For those still confused about dark matter, you need to go to brilliantlightpower.com and read Randall Mills discussion on Hydrinos. I am convinced this is a valid theory. Dark matter is a form of Hydrogen with the electron in a condition thought to be impossible, i.e., the electron is closer to the proton than the ground state, and the energy gap is far larger to move out than other states. Thus it is not excited by UV and does not absorb or emit light at normal frequencies.
I’ve looked at a couple of Mills’ reports in a field in which I am an expert and the reports described work that was of such poor quality and demonstrated little understanding of the techniques that the were garbage.
In my opinion, Mills is a con artist and pretty good at that, having taken in well over $100 million from investors, as well as government money, over the years. He’s delivered promises, just like Andrea Rossi.
If you were up to Mills level of understanding physics you would be able to critique the theory and not just hand wave it away.
Ah yes, the old: The only reason you don’t agree with me is because you aren’t as smart as me” argument.
Is Mills related to Zoe?
Mills has a degree and is a medical doctor but not practicing. He attended class at MIT (physics and EE) but did not go for a degree for that (he was trying to learn, not get a degree). He is a very very smart man, and inventor, but better on theory and concepts, not setups and fabrication. I agree not a good experimentalist (that actually is my specialty as a NASA scientist for 45 years with an ScD in fluid mechanics and thermal science). However, his theories and analysis is spot on. The studies done on his ideas are very good, and to my mind conclusive. However his apparatus are not ideal. Nevertheless qualified experts made measurements with them, and clearly support his statements. He made numerous ground-breaking developments to make practical systems. One was use of liquid metal streams make contact for an arc that is so hot it melted all metal solid electrodes near instantly. If you read his work and look at the innovations rather than critique his mechanical engineering designs you will learn a lot. This is the biggest advance (along with Rossi’s e-cat in modern times.
Interesting. Link to the physics ideas:
https://brilliantlightpower.com/theory-overview/
I shredded Mill’s hydrino theory in the chapter Details in ebook The Arts of Truth, back when his scam was called Blacklight Power. Even the one incorrectly issued patent’s sole ‘measurement’ citation is provably impossible so faked.
Actually, a hydrino does emit a certain wavelength when changing state from “normal” hydrogen to its first compressed stage. It emits a LOT of energy and light if his theory is correct and the electron CAN actually change back and forth from a higher to lower energy state. This same wavelength is detected from clouds of matter in the universe which should have cooled to absolute zero, but haven’t. Cosmic rays banging through a cloud of hydrogen manage to strike individual atoms, splitting off a bit of energy from the electron, making the atom go “dark”, while warming the surrounding matter. That there would be clouds of dark hydrogen hanging around a star nursery galaxy, and that the dark hydrogen would cluster together (as it still responds to gravity) is completely understandable.
Also understandable is that no matter how a super-collider fires Cosmic Rays (or any energy) at atoms, the splatter produced by the impact ALWAYS creates the same pattern as bouncing an object off of a round ball. The idea that the electrical charge of an electron forms a shell (a spheroid, the most efficient way in nature to surround a single point), and if the shell loses a little bit of energy then it can be compressed, is quite radical. He also believes there are other substates of further fractional reduction, and predicts different wavelengths emitted at each successive fractional split of energy… AND those wavelengths have been detected down to 1/8th. Obviously the energy release is less with each successive reduction. It is impressive work… and completely ignored by those still studiously looking for dark matter they can’t find and cannot explain away.
Recently, research scientists somewhere announced that Jupiter might contain a form of “compressed Hydrogen”. The energy spike observed by Mills’ research was also observed in the radiation from Jupiter, which happens to contain a fair amount of hydrogen.
My thought was that if Hydrogen can do it then Helium can too (compressed electron shell). Together, combined, they are the two most plentiful atoms in the universe, and if Mills is right, there’s far more of it there that we simply can’t see because of its non-reactive state to energy while retaining its mass, and therefore, its gravity. Other atoms with multiple electron shells would, I think, resist the compression of the outer electron shell due to the inner shell(s) having sufficient energy to bounce the outer shell back into place.
Say what you like about him, but do the work and try to prove him wrong. He’s allowed other researchers to review his work and they haven’t proved him wrong yet. His Sun Cell clearly has something funky going on which releases an extremely high concentration of energy which, in the presence hydrogen sulfates, appears to be self-sustaining. Simply running an electric current through hydrogen sulfates should not produce enough thermal energy to melt through a steel enclosure in seconds. All the other researchers have said is “something is happening, but we don’t know what”. Yes, the same frequency spike observed in gas clouds in space is observed in Mills’ lab experiments.
Mills’ Unified Theory of Everything is quite interesting too. As he points out, conventional quantum mathematics do not work. This sort of discussion is far beyond me. but given how hydrino theory supports gravitational lensing, dark matter clumping, missing matter found, IR frequency spikes in space clouds, and the presence of stars forming in dense galaxy clusters (hydrinos changing state to hydrogen once energized again, bringing the mass necessary to form a star into close contact). It may also explain the pulses of energy escaping at the poles of black holes, but that’s just a wild theory of mine.
It does not emit directly, but exchanges energy with a third party catalyst when formed from the ground state to achieve the transition. The third party then interacts with other atoms (collision) and 1 or more photons emitted at energies that add to the change state. The hydrino may need collision with suitable catalyst to jump back to the ground or higher state, but does not absorb a photon directly (as far as I can tell from Miles’s writeup).
Thanks! That’s a very good explanation of how Mills’ SunCell is converting the energy released from a Hydrino into visible light. Were it not for the catalyst then the energy released from the electron would be invisible except in that particular IR wavelength where its change from base state to 1/2 state emits, as might be happening in Hydrogen clouds in space, right?.
Theoretically, if you replaced the electron with a muon, it’s orbit would be much tighter, owing to the much larger mass of the muon, but it should still have a detectable absorption/emission spectra. Besides, being even heavier than H2 with electrons, why hasn’t Dark Matter collapsed into Dark stars?
The problem with this, of course, is that the non-zero expectation value of the quantum vacuum is what sets the ‘ground state’ electron energy and thus the electron orbital radius. [1]
For a hydrogen atom in its ground state, the Larmor radiation emitted exactly balances the energy from the quantum vacuum. [2] The same holds true for all other (more complex) atoms and molecules, of course.
In order to reduce electron orbital radius, it is necessary to block quantum vacuum wavemodes which are resonant with and thus support the bound electron in its ground state (a bound electron must establish an ‘orbit’ with an integer number of deBroglie waves, or a destructive-interference orbit is set up which lowers electron orbital radius… this is the basis for quantization, and the reason only resonant wavemodes can act upon the electron)… and this requires some sort of Casimir cavity or similar. Casimir cavities by their very nature are tiny, so in order to scale such a process would require literally millions of them.
The reduction in orbital radius of the electron would cause the emission of a photon, which could be captured and put to use… this must be a cyclical process, since you need the quantum vacuum to restore original electron orbital radius prior to reducing it again to get another photon.
It can be done… in a laboratory. In fact, it has been done. A noble gas blown through a plethora of Casimir cavities… once inside the cavity, noble gas electron orbital radius decreases, photons are emitted and captured, the noble gas moves out of the cavity and the quantum vacuum outside the cavity restores original electron orbital radius, rinse and repeat.
There are other means of doing something similar (locally depressing quantum vacuum expectation value to decrease electron orbit) which doesn’t require such sophisticated equipment.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180719194558/https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20150006842.pdf
“The energy level of the electron is a function of its potential energy and kinetic energy. Does this mean that the energy of the quantum vacuum integral needs to be added to the treatment of the captured electron as another potential function, or is the energy of the quantum vacuum somehow responsible for establishing the energy level of the ‘orbiting’ electron? The only view to take that adheres to the observations would be the latter perspective, as the former perspective would make predictions that do not agree with observation.”
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20190713225420/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13330878_Ground_state_of_hydrogen_as_a_zero-point-fluctuation-determined_state
“We show here that, within the stochastic electrodynamic formulation and at the level of Bohr theory, the ground state of the hydrogen atom can be precisely defined as resulting from a dynamic equilibrium between radiation emitted due to acceleration of the electron in its ground-state orbit and radiation absorbed from zero-point fluctuations of the background vacuum electromagnetic field, thereby resolving the issue of radiative collapse of the Bohr atom.”
Dark matter … you know … like string theory … well ok, maybe not that bad.
String theory is dead if Mills is correct, and it clearly seems to me that he is.
If my reading of the head posting is correct, it seems that they can gather lensing based evidence for dark matter in the universe, but not at “scales associated with individual cluster galaxies”. So dark matter doesn’t account for the rotation rate of our galaxy, or of other galaxies, despite this being one of the main things the whole idea was supposed to account for in the first place?
It occurs to me that, according to the original Star Wars movie, it is the mystical ‘Force’ that binds the galaxies together. So, well then, maybe there’s no reason to expect gravity to do the job?
Something omnipresent, omnipowerful that we can never see but controls and holds the whole of the universe together.
Did we use to have another name for that sort of entity?
“If American adults don’t know the structure of the atom, that’s a blot on our national scientific literacy. But if American adults don’t understand how vaccines work or how carbon emissions are heating up the earth, we have a catastrophe on our hands,” writes Natarajan in the Huffington Post.”
Probing another event horizon, but the same blind spot as Stephen Hawking?
Most people don’t even really understand how a bicycle works in spite of years of experience with them. link Similarly, Natarajan doesn’t understand people.
Of course, ‘true believer’ editorial writers can always pretend to be more scientifically literate than they really are, while they defer to the authorities positioned on one side of any given controversy.
The structure of the atom is much simpler than what you need to know to understand even the basics of the GH effect.
If a prominent scientist does not know that it’s CO2 and not “carbon” , it’s worse than we thought.
Query why is it called Carbon pollution and not oxygen pollution since there are twice as many Oxygen atoms.
that was rhetorical.
Carbon emissions are heating the Earth. The issue is how much, and evidence indicates not much. This is a fake issue, with misrepresentation of what the facts are and what the skeptic believe. The Huffington Post is full of nonsense.
‘There may be a missing ingredient’. That could be the understatement of the year. I have a suggestion: ‘the dark matter ingredient is surplus to requirement’. These two statements are identical. Both say: there is something we really do not understand, but my suggestion conforms better to Occam’s Razor.
I guess I’m not the only “dark matter” skeptic on this blog. Perhaps it goes hand in hand with skepticism on the “science” of global warming?
Actually I’m pretty skeptical about astrophysics and quantum mechanics and a lot of these esoteric sciences altogether. Seems to me to be a lot of stacking guesses on top of assumptions on top of hypotheticals to come up with a “discovery” that has as much possibility of being wildly wrong as it does anywhere close to correct.
But, to be fair, I’m not smart enough to understand most of what they’re talking about anyway so my skepticism may be more a reflection of my own inability to comprehend than theirs.
Has anyone tried correlating the galaxy rotation rates with the mass of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center?
Doesn’t quantum gravity also solve the issue as well as dark matter does? At least virtual particles are a real thing… I think?
Also, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to call dark matter an hypothesis rather than a theory?
Dark matter isn’t even a hypothesis. Its a place holder description for an inconsistency between observed orbital mechanics and mass calculations. The hypothesis are all over the place, from modified gravity to weakly interacting massive particles. There is no strong evidence for any of the hypothesis that fill this placeholder.
The same is true for dark energy. Its a place holder description for an inconsistency between observed energy of stars and such and the acceleration of galaxies away from each other. I am aware of even fewer hypothesis to fill this placeholder.
Indeed. I have this sneaking suspicion that ‘dark matter’ will turn out to be the Phlogiston of cosmology and that two centuries from now scientists will look back in wonder.
So called dark energy was assumed to explain the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. Mills indicated that the acceleration would occur before it was even measured, using his theories. The universe did not start with the big bang, but is oscillating over very long periods. During the expansion phase, the expansion is caused by stars converting matter to energy, and the loss of matter causes the space around the matter to relax (a relativistic effect near concentrated mass) and expand to the background scale. The sum of these expansions is the cause of the universe expanding. When most of the possible conversion occurs, gravity eventually dominates the expansion and the universe starts to contract. The compression eventually causes energy to convert to matter, and the cycle continues.
fields!!
The curtain is being pulled back from the failures of astronomy.
Cut the money off and many astronomers will come to their senses.
So-called “dark matter” is a figment of imagination propped up as a hypothesis.
There never was enough evidence to call it a theory.
The emperor has no clothes.
Every new hypothesis is a figment of someones imagination. Ask Feynman. The merit of this work is that someone may have found a way to test the hypothesis and it failed. I would not call that an emperor without clothes. It’s just how science progresses. In this case, we need a better hypothesis. And if you have one, why not put it forward?
True, a hypothesis is an idea, but it should be based on some evidence.
So-called “dark matter” never had any evidence.
It was a way to save an earlier falsified idea… that’s the difference.
In other words, trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole.
So-called “dark matter” has been around for many years… it’s not new.
That’s the point, astronomy has not progressed… it has stagnated because its practitioners refuse to admit their ideas have failed and pretend among themselves they are moving forward.
Generally speaking, most people don’t challenge their failed ideas.
That’s why it’s appropriate to say, “the emperor has no clothes.”
“To me personally, detecting a gnawing gap — a factor of 10 discrepancy in this case — between an observation and theoretical prediction is very exciting,”
What a refreshing attitude!
There is also the theory of Entropic (also known as emergent) gravity. While it too has its flaws, it seems like a much simpler explanation than Dark Matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity
I’m fed up with blasted dark matter making my coffee rotate in my mug with a distinct dip in the centre…oh wait!
“Dark Matter”is simply a “place holder” for gravitational attraction that cannot be explained by current known matter. It could be anything and any article (like this) that claims it has some properties which must be “modified” is simply unscientific and diversionary. All we have so far is observations and unsupported conjectures.
Most articles about Dark Matter (just like quantum physics) is what I call “Gee Whiz” science: “OooOooO” in a haunting voice with fingers waved in your face.
Interesting article . . . thank you.
Minor nit: there is contradiction within the article. In the third paragraph is the statement, referring to dark matter: “Its presence is known only through its gravitational pull on visible matter in space.” But the eighth paragraph starts with this: “Astronomers are able to ‘map’ the distribution of dark matter within galaxy clusters via the bending of light the galaxies produce — a concept called gravitational lensing.”
I do believe that dark matter gravitationally affects both matter and EM radiation (“light”).
The weak and missing links are in the signals of assumed/asserted fidelity, which are used to infer a model of reality outside of a limited frame of reference.
Electric Universe explains it all with observed currents flowing through the universe/stars/galaxies
http://www.holoscience.com
That springs from Hawking’s problem of event horizon entropy, applied to the supermassive galactic black holes. Their mass seems to correlate with an entropic derivative.
Something lurks there, and likely it is a door to new physics.
https://theconversation.com/keplers-forgotten-ideas-about-symmetry-help-explain-spiral-galaxies-without-the-need-for-dark-matter-new-research-121017
More here :
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/20/new-clues-on-dark-matter-from-the-darkest-galaxies/
Dark matter, dark energy, black holes. Stuff you cannot see or touch. Physics has returned to the Middle Ages.
Time to kill their conference budgets and cut their funding.
Don’t forget my personal contribution: Dark Enthalpy, the location of the hiding heat.
+42!
Entropy is the only quantity known to science that is not conserved; that is, it increases constantly, but without depleting any other quantity.
It should bother people that something enters the universe ex nihilo.
My own personal hypothesis regarding this is that entropy actually is a conserved quantity. What disappears from the universe whenever a unit of entropy appears is ‘that sock that doesn’t come out of the laundry. In addition, my anecdotal experience suggests that the phenomenon has a “handedness” to it, in that it seems to always be the right sock that disappears. I haven’t been able to prove that, though. Maybe some reader can invest the time to do so….
I’ve posted this on here before but it’s worth posting again. An alternative to dark matter.
https://theconversation.com/keplers-forgotten-ideas-about-symmetry-help-explain-spiral-galaxies-without-the-need-for-dark-matter-new-research-121017
Crtitical Space Theory: Dark Matter Lives
So, here we are: we have our observations of our galaxy, and the universe.
By our Figurin’ the matter we see – all of those stars – should be far flung. But they are not.
We are missing something. What is holding the universe together?
Well, some of us read the Bible. In the Bible it says, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Dark matter is nothing more than the gap between reality and our models of it. If the univeral manifold is flat and our distance scales are right, then you need dark matter. But if the universal manifold is (say) negatively curved, then our distance scales are wrong because objects are closer than they appear, and dark matter goes poof. Isn’t the simplest explanation the best?
NZ Willy-That fits with the inconsistencies related to Quasar distances. Halton Arp, who passed away a couple of years ago, was kicked out of all the fun astronomy parties because he found supposedly distant quasars that were interacting physically with relatively close galaxies i.e Markarian 205. I thought our theories of the universe were sadly lacking back then(the 80s). Maybe Arp will be vindicated one day.
NZ Willy may be on to something. I once got a tour of the Palomar Observatory, and a close-up look at the Hale Telescope. Not many people know this, but etched onto objective’s surface in tiny print is the legend: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”
Dark Matter isn’t yet a thing, nor is Dark Energy.
The whole meaning of Dark Matter is that it is yet unknown. It could be anything or things, it could be interdimensional things. Whatever is causing the effect which we can measure but not observe doesn’t yet have an identity, so “dark” is used because it’s not known.
I get the impression these particular scientists assume that dark matter is a physical matter substance. I’m convinced they are barking up the wrong tree.
What if the universe was simply way, way younger than predicted by Big Bang Theory, and the reason stars and galaxies haven’t scattered in all directions is because not enough time has elapsed?
If
E=MC^2
then photons have mass.
Photons are ALSO not visible.
Dark matter is just light on it’s way to it’s destination.
Erm… yeah. Photons have relativistic mass, of a sort (via the mass-energy equivalency, as you pointed out) via Einstein’s equation:
E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4
and so energy can warp space-time.
And of course, unless a photon interacts with matter, it’s not detectable (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle), so photons in transit that are not in our line-of-sight are not detectable.
But dark matter apparently interacts via the weak interaction… so unless the electronic and weak interactions are symmetrized into the electroweak (which only happens in high-energy density situations), photons cannot be the proposed dark matter. Even then, photons interact electromagnetically, whereas dark matter does not.
And we’ve already accounted for EM radiation in the calculations… dark matter is that warping of space-time over and above that which has already been accounted for.
Meneghetti et al 2020 again concentrates attention on the continuing battle between relativists who adhere to Einstein’s General Relativity theory and the upholders of Quantum Theory.
There has been a tension here for the last Century.
The story is told in an excellent book by Pedro G.Ferreira “ The Perfect Theory”, A century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity.
In Chapter 11, “The Dark Universe” he examines the story of the emergence of dark matter starting with Jim Peebles’ book “Physical Cosmology” in the early 1970s, through Dirac, Sakharov and Bekenstein, John Wheeler, Robert Dicke, Joseph Silke, Jer Yu, Yakov Zeldovich,Alan Guth, the CDM ( Cold Dark Matter Model), George Efstathiou from Oxford and his paper “The Cosmological Constant and Cold Dark Matter”,Michael Turner returning to Einstein’s cosmological constant ( which Einstein abandoned eighty years ago and which was called ‘Einstein’s greatest mistake’),George Smoot and the satellite explorer, Cosmic Background Explorer,(COBE) in the 1990s.
It is a wonderful journey.
Ferreira concludes-
“Now in the early 21st century we seem to be in a similar (difficult) situation with a wonderful theory of gravity that to explain cosmology requires that more than 96% of the universe be made up of something we can’t see or detect.
Could this be yet another crack in the edifice that Einstein had constructed almost 100 years before?
That General Relativity had to be corrected due to Quantum physics had been accepted without too much fuss. But questioning General Relativity’s efficacy on large scales was something different. If the dark matter and dark energy were eliminated from the picture, Einstein’s beautiful theory would have to be modified.
The prospect was as unappealing to many astrophysicists as taking a sledgehammer to a classic car just so it would fit in the garage.”
The Israeli astrophysicist Mordehai Milgrom has attempted a radically new look at how gravity behaves in galaxies by applying Newtonian gravity.
His new approach was called Modified Newtonian Gravity or MOND for short.
It sought to address the difficulty of reconciling GR with an inflationary fast expanding universe, the difficulty that Einstein saw.
It is still controversial.
And so the story goes on.
Perhaps there is a young Einstein out there with the answers.
“Dark matter does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. ”
In that case, why isn’t it called transparent matter instead of dark matter?
The newly discovered gas halo around Andromeda is already reaching that of the Milky Way. And yes that’s normal matter.
“We” have a similar situation with the question of where did all of the various species we see come from.
Darwin, along with all of us, has pondered their origin. In the class “Ave,” we have penguins that swim like a fish, and Ostriches laying one-pound eggs, and hummingbirds that weigh less than a quarter and can hover in one spot all day. We have woodpeckers that willfully ram their heads straight into wood in order to get insects, and the power for this is done with a tongue that comes out the nostril and wraps ’round the back of the head.
Speaking of flying, we have butterflies that are literally gossamer but can fly across the Gulf of Mexico and arrive at an obvious locale with uncanny accuracy, and we have bats, mammals, that can fly well enough to pick mosquitoes out of the sky. Try swatting a mosquito to appreciate what a skill that is.
At first, the simple idea was, “The Lord God made them all.” Too easy. Darwin and others gave us “Evolution.”
Evolutionary theory has major gaps. We, generally, have tried to minimize these, and cheer on the ol’ theory. But the enthusiasm is flagging as the improbability of Evolution is more clear.
As with this “missing matter” matter, there are stop-gap solutions. Epigenetics, punctuated equilibrium, etc., etc. The Lenski experiment has possibly documented an actual case of random mutations producing a beneficial adaptation, this took place in 30,000 generations of E. Coli; at the same time, we have some evidence promoting the idea that organisms, by multi-gene swaps, can gain an advantageous mutation in one generation.
We are not quite at the point of honesty in “evolutionary theory” to say that we really have major gaps, and we do not have the necessary observable evidence to have a valid theory.
When I question Evolutionary theory, in online discussions or with everyday people in conversation, people boldly claim this is “fact,” and then fail to support facts, observations, of how we have such variety as noted above, Ave as an example. Instead, I hear what is micro-evolution: genetic drift, loss not gain of genetic diversity. A pug has far less genetic diversity than the original wild Dog from which he has been selectively bred. That is not the Evolution we want to explain how we have a penguin and an ostrich and a hummingbird and a woodpecker. All “related.”
It is refreshing to see this cosmology debate be serious about its deficits.
So, you are the last one? Promise? Don’t fool us by producing another Nanci Piglosi. The human animal supposedly has like 97% of the DNA of a chimpanzee…apparently a little DNA goes a long way. The human has arrived late on the scene of evolution but you can argue that despite all the shortcomings, the human is the most successful animal ever…so far.
Dark Matter – The Urantia Book, finished in 1934 and published after the wars in 1955 explains dark matter, decades before it was discussed by scientists. We call this book, “the book of answers.” There are many scientific notations in the book, cosmology, religions, how the universe was built and operates, spiritual structure, and what actually happens when we pass on. It was commissioned by The Ancients of Days by Christ as a revelation to all his millions of planets with mortal life. It’s free online – enjoy it!