Dark Matter Revealed

[John]

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found a ring of dark matter:
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5535

Supposedly, dark matter makes up most of the matter in the universe - everything else makes up maybe only a few percent of the total. It cannot be seen, but its gravitational effects can be detected.

[Chris]

umm Very interesting indeed

[John]

That ring we see in the pic at the link, that's not dark matter we're looking at... it's the light bending around the dark matter, due to the gravitational effects of the dark matter.

It's pretty wild stuff because scientists have theorized about it for a long time... basically saying that there is not enough gravity between the planets, sun & etc for everything to be holding together and not drifting apart -- so there must be *something* that provides the additional gravity needed for the calculations to work.

When you were taking astronomy at college, was dark matter discussed much?

[Chris]

Yeah we touched the subject a little, Our main study was of the planets what their composition was and where they were. My teacher then had his own theories about the rouge planets so we also studied that alot.

we were out looking through the telescope alot searching for random stuff that popped up and had to research and write a paper about it.

[tomg]

Could this have to do with some sort of anti magnetic force?

Could it have to do with say the paint scheme of white reflects and black absorbs?

Just some minor thoughts.

[koshkagoddess]

They talked about this on The Universe. There is some project out that is trying to collect dark matter. I forgot where in the US it is, but it underground.

[John]

Originally Posted by koshkagoddess

They talked about this on The Universe. There is some project out that is trying to collect dark matter. I forgot where in the US it is, but it underground.

I think I know what you're talking about. Isn't is somewhere in Japan... some big really strange looking building with a dome top... they have all these shiny orb structures all over the floor space. The whole project is to collect maybe even a single particle as it passes through or into the Earth? I remember watching something about that...

[UnDeRoAtH]

hey fry and bender can get home on that dark matter hahaha its funny how they use it to power there space ships

[koshkagoddess]

Naw. Not Japan. It in some old abandoned mine in the US, I wanna say the midwest for some reason.