How Do We Know Dark Matter Really Exists?
Written by Ashley Hamer
Curiosity, curiosity.com
July 25, 2018
Ever since the late 1960s when Vera Rubin and Kent Ford
discovered that galaxies don't behave the way they should,
scientists have been looking for the mysterious substance
behind that behavior. That theoretical stuff is called dark
matter, and while it's invisible to telescopes, it has
mass, which means it can show its might through the force
of gravity. Of course, that's all theoretical. Some might
even say it's a little too convenient, as if scientists
just came up with a magical substance that makes the math
work. What makes us so sure that dark matter is even a
thing?
Hold Me Closer, Tiny Particle
"People ask this question a lot," said Katie Mack, a
theoretical astrophysicist at North Carolina State
University who studies dark matter. "You know, maybe dark
matter is just a fudge factor or something." But for
astrophysicists, dark matter is much more than that.
If you go back to high school physics class, you may
remember that the more mass something has, the greater its
gravitational pull. If galaxies were only made up of the
stuff we can see, there wouldn't be enough gravity to keep
them together, much less to keep the stars in the sparse
outer edges orbiting just as fast as those in the center.
In fact, scientists reckon that normal matter makes up less
than five percent of the universe. Dark matter seems to
make up a whopping 27 percent. (The rest is a mysterious
force called dark energy.)
Continues at:
https://curiosity.com/topics/how-do-we-know-dark-matter-really-exists-curiosity
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj
Sysop: | Keyop |
---|---|
Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
Users: | 293 |
Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
Uptime: | 224:00:27 |
Calls: | 6,623 |
Calls today: | 5 |
Files: | 12,171 |
Messages: | 5,318,477 |