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Dark matter disappears

The uncertainty of science: A new study has found no evidence of dark matter within 13,000 light years of the Sun, something that had not been expected.

According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts. This may mean that attempts to directly detect dark matter particles on Earth are unlikely to be successful.

These findings will be as controversial as the now abandoned faster-than-light neutrino results last fall. Here, however, the new data is likely going to be more robust, which will cause the entire astrophysical community some real conniptions.

The evidence for dark matter itself is also quite robust. Imagine that in our own solar system the outer planets, instead of taking a longer time to orbit the Sun, orbited the Sun at increasingly faster speeds as you moved outward from the Sun. This is what astronomers find when they look at the outer regions of all galaxies, and they have seen this phenomenon consistently now for almost a half century. It is as if there is a reserve of unseen matter which gravitationally boosts the motions of objects on galactic scales.

These new results, however, have failed to find any gravitational evidence of dark matter within the Milky Way. The question will be: Why do all scientists see the phenomenon when the look at galaxies from a distance, but not when they look at stars within the Milky Way?

Your answer right now is probably as good as any.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Patrick Ritchie

    Fascinating!

  • Sayomara

    I have always found interesting atheist scientists who say god is an invisible force with no evidence seem to be ok with Dark Matter.

  • Pzatchok

    I wonder if the supposed dark matter is not just normal matter farther out than out telescopes have seen so far?”

    We haven’t yet built a telescope that has found the edge of the universe and the estimates of total mass in the universe are just that, estimates.

    If dark matter existed and it gravitationally interacted with the rest or the normal matter( by attracting it) in the universe then wouldn’t it have fallen into the gravity fields of normal matter and thus become part of the planets and stuff we see?

    Or is it magic and never touches other matter but does interact with it?

  • Pzatchok

    Or coalesced into its own magic planets already?

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