The uncertainty of science: A new analysis of the infrared data from 153 galaxies using the Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that dark matter might not be necessary to explain the rotation of galaxies.
First, this concise and nicely written explanation from the link of why dark matter has been proposed:
Newton’s laws of motion predict that planets that revolve closer to a star move faster than those that are farther away. In principle this should also hold true for stars circling the cores of galaxies, but for nearly a century, astronomers have seen that stars near the outskirts of galaxies orbit at nearly the same velocities as ones near galactic centers.
To explain why these outlying stars travel as quickly as they do without flying out into the void beyond, researchers came up with the idea of dark matter, a substance whose gravitational pull is thought to keep whirling stars in check. Scientists have largely ruled out all known particles as possible explanations for dark matter, and the consensus is that dark matter must be a kind of invisible, intangible material that is only detectable via its gravitational influence.
However, despite decades of trying, researchers have failed to capture a single mote of dark matter, even though it is supposed to make up roughly five-sixths of all matter in the universe. This raises the possibility that dark matter might not be real.
The new research, which I must admit I do not really understand, supposedly suggests that dark matter is unnecessary to explain the motions of stars.
Previous analyses of the orbital velocities of the stars in galaxies often depended on visible wavelengths of light. However, the stars that produce the most visible light are relatively short-lived and prone to fluctuations, and so may not provide the best picture of how matter is scattered overall throughout a galaxy. Instead, McGaugh and his colleagues analyzed near-infrared images collected by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope over the past five years. “The stars that generate the most near-infrared light are red giants, that are pretty stable in their output, and so are much better representative of a galaxy’s total mass of stars,” McGaugh said.
The researchers found an extraordinarily close association between the location of normal matter and the way it accelerates around the centers of galaxies. “We were surprised at how tight that relationship was,” McGaugh said. “It looks tantamount to a law of nature.”
Neither the article nor the scientists who did this research however explain clearly how this tight association negates the need for dark matter.
