WhatFinger


Space anomalies, Un-scientific cohesiveness of the universe

Dark Matter Not Matter…



For a long time now, dark matter has been the explanation for one of those space anomalies that no one has quite been able to figure out. The anomaly? The visible and interesting stuff that hangs around our universe--stars, planets, gasses and dust--are simply not heavy enough.

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They're not big and substantial enough to provide the cohesiveness that is evident when we look at a galaxy. They should just be flying apart at the seams. Obviously this is not happening, so the question remains, what is holding the galaxies together? From thence came dark matter. Its heavy properties--though unobserved--were the answer that scientists had been hunting for. Now the universe began to make sense, even if it wasn't observable provable quantifiable sense. According to the net, dark matter is described as matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. The first to provide evidence and infer the existence of a phenomenon that has come to be called "dark matter" was Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1933. However, 74 years on, dark matter is once again on the bumpy road of scientific approval. Many have presented roadblocks that attempt to provide answers other than dark matter to explain away the apparent lack of flying apart at the seams. But for the longest time, there has been no substantial (haha) competitor. Has that come to an end? John Moffat, an astronomer at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and Joel Brownstein, his graduate student, believe that they have found a different explanation. Last August, an astronomer from the University of Tucson reported witnessing a collision of two massive galaxy clusters, known as the Bullet Cluster, some 3 billion light years away. The astronomer and his colleagues reported that the collision had caused clouds of dark matter to separate from normal matter. This was, to many, the last nail in the coffin for those attempting to provide alternative explanations. Moffat and Brownstein disagree though. In a study being published in the Nov. 21 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the pair explain what they are calling a Modified Gravity (MOG) theory. They believe that their MOG Gravity (yes, there are two gravities in that sentence) can explain the Bullet Cluster collision. "MOG gravity is stronger if you go out from the center of the galaxy than it is in Newtonian gravity," Moffat explained. "The stronger gravity mimics what dark matter does. With dark matter, you take Einstein and Newtonian gravity and you shovel in more dark matter. If there's more matter, you get more gravity. Whereas for me, I say dark matter doesn't exist. It's the gravity that's changed." Studying images taken by Hubble, Chandra X-ray and Spitzer space telescopes and the Magellan telescope in Chile of the Bullet Cluster, the pair used gravity lensing to conclude that dark matter is not the only explanation. "Using Modified Gravity theory, the 'normal' matter in the Bullet Cluster is enough to account for the observed gravitational lensing effect," Brownstein said. "Continuing the search for and then analyzing other merging clusters of galaxies will help us decide whether dark matter or MOG theory offers the best explanation for the large scale structure of the universe." What are the advocates of dark matter saying to this new "discovery"? Douglas Clowe, the lead astronomer of the team that linked the Bullet Cluster observations with dark matter (and now at Ohio University), is standing by his original claims. "As far as we're concerned, [Moffat] hasn't done anything that makes us retract our earlier statement that the Bullet Cluster shows us that we have to have dark matter," Clowe said. "We're still open to modifying gravity to reduce the amount of dark matter, but we're pretty sure that you have to have most of the mass of the universe still in some form of dark matter." In short, most astronomers are less likely to turn a fundamental theory on its head than to create a new particle, such as dark matter, to explain the un-scientific cohesiveness of the universe. Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.


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Guest Column Joshua Hill -- Bio and Archives

Items of notes and interest from the web.


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