Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Such-Echo6002 t1_jdpf080 wrote

Can we give up on the idea of invisible matter and find a different idea for what “dark matter” is? Matter that doesn’t interact with normal matter feels like sloppy theorizing

−2

WhileNotLurking t1_jdqcnbo wrote

Dark matter isn't regarded as "not interacting". We know about it because we see observations that don't make sense with the matter we can see.

For example this system has more gravitational pull than makes sense unless there is 25% more matter.

What's that missing matter - dark matter.

Personal I feel that we will eventually find that there is lots of "heavy dust" out there. Perhaps small but dense bits of rock and particle matter that just isn't that visible compared to giant less dense and bright hydrogen clouds.

3

Interesting-Piece483 t1_jdqkgar wrote

I am not an expert, this is just my opinion. I agree, I think it's a lack of understanding of the interstellar medium. Currently, we have observed portions of deep state can vary in density between 0.0001 ions per cubic centimeter to a million ions per cubic centimeter, but this would be very hard to measure. If the average is on the higher end of the range, or higher than expected, we could vastly miscalculate the expected weight of normal matter given the sheer size of "empty" space. Furthermore abundance of heavy elements in the solar system point to a supernova event in our vicinity in the past which may have locally emptied/blasted away the particles around us, what if real space is less of a vacuum than we think and there is the missing mass.

3

goatasaurusrex t1_jdqjkcq wrote

There are two recent papers (from the same authors I believe) trying to do this. There's quite a bit of skepticism though, as they appear to have cherry picked data to fit. But it is something astrophysics is trying to figure out. They don't like it either.

1