New blow to dark matter theory

[Judi Lynn]

19 April 2012
New blow to dark matter theory
by Will Parker

A study of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for the existence of dark matter in a large volume around the Sun. According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to have dark matter - estimated to constitute 83 percent of the matter in the Universe - in relative abundance. But a new study by a team of astronomers at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla facility in Chile has found that these theories do not fit the observational facts. Their analysis appears in The Astrophysical Journal.

The team based their findings on the motions of more than 400 stars up to 13,000 light-years from the Sun. From this new data they calculated the mass of material in the vicinity of the Sun, in a volume four times larger than ever considered before.

"The amount of mass that we derive matches very well with what we see - stars, dust and gas - in the region around the Sun," said team leader Christian Moni Bidin, from the Universidad de Concepción, Chile. "But this leaves no room for the extra material - dark matter - that we were expecting. Our calculations show that it should have shown up very clearly in our measurements. But it was just not there."

Dark matter is thought to be a substance that cannot be seen, but shows itself by its gravitational attraction for the material around it. It was originally theorized to explain why the outer regions of galaxies, including our own Milky Way, rotated so quickly.

More:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20120318224819data_trunc_sys.shtml

[dimbear]

1. An aesthetically pleasing result. Dark matter is an affront to the vanity of science.

As if we could possibly have no conception of what forms most of the universe. IMHO gravity needs a finagle.

[Rain Mcloud]

2. IMHO and certainly uneducated Opinion

if Dark Matter existed then micro-lensing would be the give away,also stellar bodies would not always have predictable movements much as the wiggle that stars have when planets are in tow.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Much of the evidence for dark matter comes from lensing phenomena.

See "Einstein's Telescope" for a good discussion.

[marasinghe]

3. i am of the opinion that most of the dark matter in the Milky Way, coalesced ....

to form the twin black abysses of henry kissinger & dick cheney.

but that's just me.

[longship]

4. That is not what this research says

This does not say that dark matter does not exist. It says, from observations of nearby stars that dark matter was not detected. That is an entirely different thing.

Concerning esthetics, I was surprised by the dark matter business when I first heard about it. However, it has been on the periphery of astronomy since the 1930's. The evidence for its existence is solid enough that cosmologists are fairly certain. It doesn't matter whether people like it or not. We have to live in the universe we have, not one which we may want.

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

J. B. S. Haldane

[2on2u]

5. Cheney on astronomy, We go to war with the universe we have, not the one we

wish we had. This is a very dark matter indeed.

[Eddie Haskell]

7. It doesn't matter whether people like it or not. We have to live in the universe we have ...

And what we have is all theory and no dark matter.

[longship]

8. Please read the article again

Last edited Tue Apr 24, 2012, 02:25 AM - Edit history (1)

Then, read about the rest of the research about Dark Matter. I would suggest you look up the Bullet Cluster and Abell 1689, which is in your face evidence supporting Dark Matter.

This report is very interesting. But Dark Matter has always been an effect which has been observed only on galactic and inter-galactic scales. A single study with data indicating that no Dark Matter has been observed intra-galactically (only within 13,000 LY) in no way nullifies decades (back to the 1930's) of data showing the contrary on galactic scales. That's just not how science works.

The editor who did the title of this article doesn't even know what the damned research says. This certainly does not nullify a whole body of evidence.