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.
###
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.
“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!