![]() ![]() There would have been no stars, no planets – no life. As they point out, if there was no dark matter there would be nothing to hold galaxies together. It is issues like these that have led scientists to promote the idea of Dark Matter Day. Most of it is made up of material from the dark side, the side we cannot yet see.” “But now it transpires we are not even made of the dominant stuff in the cosmos. “Ever since Copernicus, we have known we are not located anywhere special in the universe,” said astronomer royal Martin Rees. Only the small remaining fraction is actually made of protons, neutrons, and atoms from which galaxies, stars, planets and living beings are constructed. ![]() ![]() These galactic haloes are vast, say scientists, and account for about 85% of the universe’s total mass. These are believed to be made up of weakly interacting massive particles – “Wimps” – the main constituents of dark matter. Vast haloes of material that cannot be detected by traditional methods must be surrounding galaxies and are holding them together, say astronomers. Its existence is inferred from the behaviour of galaxies that appear to rotate too quickly to hold themselves together. The existence of dark matter has become one of the most controversial and frustrating issues in modern physics. It is the ultimate in ghostly phenomena.” “We can see its effects, but cannot detect it directly. “I don’t think you could pick a better date to celebrate a hunt for something that is as ephemeral and mysterious as dark matter,” said physicist Chamkaur Ghag, of University College London. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |