Comments
boundegar t1_itpy4gy wrote
Stop that! We're still using our atmosphere!
Subject_Meat5314 t1_itu5o0a wrote
i am personally against turning the atmosphere into something other than an atmosphere. it is useful as is. maybe we can find a used atmosphere on craigslist to tinker with if we are feeling frisky.
Due_Connection179 t1_itpr148 wrote
I think I need proof that dark matter exists before I actually start believing it. If something is invisible and not able to be detected, maybe it's just not there to begin with.
RnDanger t1_itpv9ys wrote
I think looking can't hurt and it will only cost computer time since they already have data from monitoring meteors, if I read that right
Due_Connection179 t1_itpvigk wrote
Oh for sure. I'm not saying to not look because it will actually just hurt us since we accidentally find stuff all the time.
RnDanger t1_itpvqun wrote
Ah, I see. Yes, we need to verify it before we believe in it. I did not like that the article states the amount of dark matter in the universe as a known fact when we were still looking for it.
wolfpack_charlie t1_its5e39 wrote
something is exerting a crazy amount of gravitational force on all the matter that we can see, and there's no explanation for ordinary matter on the periodic table accounting for the massive difference in the amount of visible matter vs. the amount of mass required to explain those observations. And no one has come up with a modified theory of gravity that explains those discrepancies nearly as well as dark matter.
So until we have a better theory, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model of cosmology will continue to be the best model.
It's frustrating that it hinges on these particles barely, if at all, interacting with anything else, other than gravitationally. But the universe is indifferent towards whether we can directly observe it or not. The idea that some particles have extremely weak interaction is not far fetched. Trillions of neutrinos are passing through you right now without interacting
FPOWorld t1_itth11f wrote
The proof is the effect of its gravity at large scales.
Due_Connection179 t1_itucilo wrote
Do you have any articles? Because these two that I've found (plus this third) just make it seem like they can only detect dark matter around massive black holes or clusters of stars which already have their own massive amount of gravity distortion abilites (gravitational lensing).
None of what those articles (or the articles/videos that they linked) have made me change my mind on there being Dark Matter/Dark Energy out in the universe messing with things.
wolfpack_charlie t1_itvav05 wrote
Dark Matter is every single place that astronomers look. Everywhere. Every galaxy rotates faster than it should, gravitational lensing from huge galaxies always shows a big excess in mass from what's visible, large galaxy clusters don't have enough visible mass to stay held together, and the CMB should be more uniform unless there's way more hidden mass in the universe.
All of these discrepancies are explained by there being some kind of matter that interacts with gravity and not light. Astronomers aren't saying "this is exactly what dark matter is", they're saying "the most reasonable explanation is that there is some kind of matter we can't directly see that is exerting all this gravitational force"
What part of dark matter are you "not convinced" on? The data is there. Astronomers have simply observed these gravitational anomalies and there has to be *something* causing it
Due_Connection179 t1_itveh9m wrote
>Dark Matter is every single place that astronomers look. Everywhere.
- Except they can't see it, nor can they prove it yet.
>Every galaxy rotates faster than it should
- What if we are simply underestimating the power that super-massive black holes have on gravity and the galaxies around them?
>gravitational lensing from huge galaxies always shows a big excess in mass from what's visible
- Gravitational Lensing causes weird things to happen to the background of the galaxies we are looking at, so why wouldn't it just fall in this category?
>large galaxy clusters don't have enough visible mass to stay held together
- What if they are held together in ways similar to multi-star systems but on a much larger scale? What if they are actually orbiting around each other but they are so massive that it's hard to pick that up?
>the CMB should be more uniform unless there's way more hidden mass in the universe.
- Are there any good articles on this?
>All of these discrepancies are explained by there being some kind of matter that interacts with gravity and not light.
- We have picked up particles that are 34 picometers across (1 picometer = 1 trillionth of a meter), so how come we can't pick up this particle that makes up 95% of the universe?
>"the most reasonable explanation is that there is some kind of matter we can't directly see that is exerting all this gravitational force"
- It seems like the most reasonable explanation is that we don't understand enough about gravity when it's on the scales of black holes, super-massive black holes, or full galaxies. That's what I'm not convinced of.
wolfpack_charlie t1_itvlyso wrote
> Except they can't see it, nor can they prove it yet.
What I mean to say is that everywhere astronomers look, there isn't nearly enough mass to account for the gravitational effects they see. (It's like how astronomers observed black holes indirectly, by seeing their gravity affect nearby stars before the EHT got a direct photo) This is called the "missing matter problem" and dark matter is the best explanation they have.
> we don't understand enough about gravity
If a modified theory of gravity was proposed that offered a better and more consistent explanation than dark matter, then it would be the dominant theory. The best attempt at this is called MOND, and it can explain fast galaxy rotation but none of the other observed phenomena that point towards dark matter, so it's not considered a better explanation than dark matter
Due_Connection179 t1_itvn6jm wrote
>Proponents of MOND emphasize predictions made on galaxy scales (where MOND enjoys its most notable successes) and believe that a cosmological model consistent with galaxy dynamics has yet to be discovered.
This was my whole point, so I guess for now I side with MOND over the Dark Matter theory.
wolfpack_charlie t1_itvobgy wrote
From the same wikipedia article:
> The most serious problem facing Milgrom's law is that it cannot eliminate the need for dark matter in all astrophysical systems: galaxy clusters show a residual mass discrepancy even when analyzed using MOND.[2] The fact that some form of unseen mass must exist in these systems detracts from the adequacy of MOND as a solution to the missing mass problem
MOND still requires dark matter to exist.
Due_Connection179 t1_itvreuf wrote
Thanks for linking that. That is very interesting that MOND needs dark matter to exist like that.
This article is the only one I could find that could "detect" dark matter and so far no one has been able to duplicate their results.
This article suggests that the best chance of detecting dark matter is currently in the middle of its 1000-day mission to collect data.
I honestly just need more than "trust me, it exists" before I can actually believe it because right now I laid out 5 questions that scientists can't really answer about Dark Matter.
wolfpack_charlie t1_itw3tr3 wrote
This video is really good rundown of why astronomers are confident that dark matter exists even though they haven't directly detected it yet. The indirect evidence is overwhelming and can't be explained by any kind of ordinary matter or modifications to gravity. You're right that there are a lot of unanswered questions about dark matter - it's one of the biggest unsolved problems in science.
I recommend Dr Becky's channel in general for astronomy content. She's a PhD astrophysicist and great at explaining deep concepts in astronomy and cosmology
FPOWorld t1_itwjtt9 wrote
Here’s a quick vid about the history of dark matter:
It wasn’t gravitational lensing that made scientists think there was matter they couldn’t see, that was something they discovered later that reinforced the idea that dark matter exists. What initially made them realize dark matter existed is that the stars on the outer edges of a galaxy weren’t being flung out of the galaxy as math predicted they should. Some force they couldn’t see was holding galaxies together…hence dark matter. There has been more confirmation of evidence that it it exists via lensing for example, but we still have no idea what is actually doing the work. Dark isn’t describing the color, it’s more of an indication that it’s completely invisible to science. It’s really just a placeholder until someone figures out where this invisible force is being generated from.
[deleted] t1_itrcace wrote
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DracoDruid t1_itpyz6u wrote
And if we as a species continue on our current path, earth's atmosphere will be turned into a giant dark matter instead
[deleted] t1_itput9a wrote
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