NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter

[Canuckster1127]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 133930.htm

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

The hot gas in this collision was slowed by a drag force, similar to air resistance. In contrast, the dark matter was not slowed by the impact, because it does not interact directly with itself or the gas except through gravity. This produced the separation of the dark and normal matter seen in the data. If hot gas was the most massive component in the clusters, as proposed by alternative gravity theories, such a separation would not have been seen. Instead, dark matter is required.

This is horrible science. It is simply "dark matter of the gaps" at work and preposterous. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your attention. This was sarcasm at work. That is all. No energy or matter was destroyed or created during this event, in keeping with the 1st law of thermodynamics.

P.S. The picture's pretty and that's cool-any explanation on what is meant when it says dark matter does not interact directly with itself in any way except through gravity? That's kinda...odd. So if it hits itself...nothing?

[JohnClark]

P.S. The picture's pretty and that's cool-any explanation on what is meant when it says dark matter does not interact directly with itself in any way except through gravity? That's kinda...odd. So if it hits itself...nothing?

No, the gravitational force of the two would interact, however they don't interact by the other 3 forces (strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic). Particles like neutrinos fit this description. Still, dark matter is still a very wide open field of study, and there remains much to learn about the subject before we can say almost anything with any certainty. What we do know is that the majority of the matter in the universe is dark (in that it doesn't emit or reflect enough radiation to be detected) and now that we have confirmed the existence of said dark matter, the task is to find it and categorize it so we can better understand how it interacts with the other entities present in space.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Thank you, I was confused. Makes sense now.

[David Blacklock]

Dark matter has been one of the many "bad boys" of cosmology for decades. Cosmology itself is hard to understand, being a mix between astronomy and nuclear physics. None of that stuff comes easy.

Anyway, a guy named Zwickey first thought he had identified it in 1933 in the Coma cluster of galaxies. Then in 1975, a female astronomer/cosmologist named Rubin brought it up again. She thought she had identified it from the velocities of stars in spiral galaxies. When nobody paid any attention, she was not surprised. The first job she was invited to apply for wouldn't let the interview occur in the physics professors' office area because females were not allowed there - I can't remember which prominent university that was.

Within just a few years, however, it became a hot issue because it answered so many previously unanswered questions. Now dark matter is accepted as a dominant feature of the universe, holding galaxies together.