Has Dark Matter Finally Been Found? Big News Coming Soon

[hue]

Source: Space.com

BOSTON — Big news in the search for dark matter may be coming in about two weeks, the leader of a space-based particle physics experiment said today (Feb. 17) here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That's when the first paper of results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle collector mounted on the outside of the International Space Station, will be submitted to a scientific journal, said MIT physicist Samuel Ting, AMS principle investigator.
Though Ting was coy about just what, exactly, the experiment has found, he said the results bear on the mystery of dark matter, the invisible stuff thought to outnumber regular matter in the universe by a factor of about six to one.
"It will not be a minor paper," Ting said, hinting that the findings were important enough that the scientists rewrote the paper 30 times before they were satisfied with it. Still, he said, it represents a "small step" in figuring out what dark matter is, and perhaps not the final answer. [Photos: AMS Hunts Exotic Particles In Space]

Read more: http://www.space.com/19845-dark-matter-found-nasa-experiment.html

[Wait Wut]

1. That gave me chills.

Though I'm far from a science geek*, this fascinates me. I think it goes back to my childhood when my father tried to explain atoms and molecules and I asked, "But, what holds them all together?" I got nothing back but a blank stare.

*I use the term 'geek' in the most respectful and affectionate way.

[NutmegYankee]

3. There are quite a few of us who embrace the term "geek".

If it offends somebody, they probably aren't one.

[RC]

5. +10 Many here are like what you said.

[Cirque du So-What]

14. I'm old enough to remember

when 'geek' referred to a sideshow freak - perhaps the guy who bites the heads off live chickens.

[JeffHead]

36. And his name is Luther.

[valerief]

4. Geek is an endearment. Anyone who doesn't think so is a jockhead. nt

[hue]

6. Your question for Your Father was a great question!!

If You care to seek yet the answer look up gluons!

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Can't wait to read it!

We have detectors buried in mines around the planet too, to shield them from cosmic rays, hoping to pick up the temperature increase from an impact on a wafer of Germanium, that's been chilled close to absolute zero.

I'm surprised, but happy that possibly the ISS picked it up first!

One more piece of the puzzle, in place, I hope.

[WCGreen]

9. That is very cool...

I get most of my science rom Nova and Frontline on PBS with a little from the Science Channel so I know a little about it so I am excited when breakthroughs occur.

[RC]

7. I think gravity repels dark matter

That is why the universe is expanding at an ever faster rate.
And why it is so hard to find in this gravity well.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. No

Dark matter was detected through its gravitational attraction with visible matter.

[hue]

11. The universe may be expanding d/t dark energy which some folks confuse with dark matter.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

44. Actually, the idea came about by observing stellar structures...

A galaxy is composed of billions of stars but they are so far away from each other that their gravity should not be able to hold them together in a spiral. There must be some other force allowing that so scientists speculate that whatever that is must be invisible to our instruments and must have it's own gravity.

A long time ago there was talk of space as not being empty but filled with substance and even Lovecraft talked about the aether of space. Some of his creatures had wings that could fly though it but were useless in an atmosphere.

There are others like myself that consider the dimensions to be length, width, depth, time, and space. With space being an actual dimension that we already know is influenced by gravity. If you think of space as being what is moving instead of this phantom mass with theoretical gravity then the structure of galaxies is easily understood.

[hue]

8. More info on the search for CDM coming from the LUX in South Dakota!!

http://lux.brown.edu/home.html

[yodermon]

12. Every time I hear about Dark Matter I have to post this Calvin & Hobbes Strip:

[progressoid]

19. QUARK QUARK QUARK QUARK QUARK

[bemildred]

13. Well, it would be really good to shed some light on this. nt

[hue]

16. :-) this is an older article, but it was one of the 1st to "shine a light on dark matter!"

FSU physicist shining a light on mysterious 'dark matter'


http://www.fsu.edu/news/2007/10/02/dark.matter/

[bemildred]

38. I've always considered it to be a fudge factor anyway.

Things don't fit the theory, so you throw in a fudge factor to make the equations fit observation. That's how Ptolemiac Astronomy got so convoluted. But, if they ever figure it out, it's going to be big, and new, and different, like Relativity itself was at the time.

[D Gary Grady]

41. There's good evidence dark matter as such really exists

You're not alone. For a long time a lot of people suspected that such things as the rotational behavior of spiral galaxies could best be explained with a revised theory of gravity. But evidence has been piling up that dark matter really is a form of matter that interacts with other matter only gravitationally. In particular, gravitational lensing has permitted mapping the distribution of dark matter and shownit to be different from that of the visible parts of galaxies.

[bemildred]

43. There is something there all right, but what?

I've read some of those stories about the dark matter halos and the mega-galactic structures. I suspect we do not yet have the proper language to talk about whatever it is. Like quantum effects before we had quantum theory. What does it mean for something to have mass but not interact with "ordinary matter", if not that you have some form of "extraordinary matter"?

Edit: the other thing about dark matter is there is so much of it.

[Jackpine Radical]

30. That was wretched.

[bemildred]

39. Quite.

[Orrex]

15. If I know exactly when the announcement will be made

How will I know exactly where it will be made?

[backtoblue]

18. you'll know Where - exactly When you know it

***burn after reading***

[Ikonoklast]

24. You won't.

Just the act of listening to the announcement changes the location from whence it was made.

And people listening at *that* location will think it is coming from somewhere else.

[hue]

25. ;-)

[Orrex]

32. LOL

I love it when people explain my jokes to me.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

33. I see what you did there.

Well, we can't be "certain," can we?

[Duer 157099]

17. I wonder if this has anything to do with the temporary closure of CERN?

Also, just FYI, every scientist everywhere always thinks their paper is going to be the most important thing anybody has ever published.

Just sayin'.

[hue]

22. No, CERN had planned to shut down the LHC in order to revamp the collider and it's magnets for more

powerful collisions in 2 years.

http://news.discovery.com/space/lhc-shutdown-cern-higgs-130214.htm

[dorkulon]

20. I've always been somewhat skeptical on dark matter.

I'm certainly not an expert, but it always seemed a bit convenient, this invisible stuff that makes physicists' equations work out. It will be interesting to see what's revealed here.

[Motown_Johnny]

26. I'm with you on that

Honestly, I hope they found something significant but I am not holding my breath.

[VWolf]

34. FWIW, that's exactly what some said about the neutrino

Just sayin'

[longship]

21. Dark matter is all the packing materials for all the equipment being used to study dark matter.

According to the late, great Douglas Adams.

[darkangel218]

23. Of course dark matter exists.

I suspect it is the exact opposite of what real matter is, bassically some sort of negative energy which devoures and voids real matter. It's what the black holes are made of.
Even the ancient Sumerians were talking about the Primordial chaos/void from which our universe was created.

[D Gary Grady]

42. Gravity itself has negative energy

The total energy of a gravitational field exactly cancels out the mass-energy that causes it, something implicit in Einstein's general theory of relativity but also, interestingly enough, in Newtonian gravitation (though that wasn't obvious). The total mass-energy of the universe, counting the energy of the gravitational field, ends up being close to zero and very possibly exactly zero.

Of course, that the ancient Sumerians knew spoke of primordial chaos shows that they had lawyers too.

[darkangel218]

45. Were you one of them?

Lawyers, I mean.

[samsingh]

27. anticipation building

[mamayo]

28. we've had dark matter around for years

it's called Pat Robertson

[Botany]

29. MMMM! Dark Matter

*****

BTW if it outnumbers regular matter in the universe, which is a very big thing, then why is it so hard to
find? And what is it made up of that makes it so hard to see?

[hue]

37. It is not visible to our eyes because it doesn't interact with photons.

Dark matter is made up of several particles: axions, supersymetric particles or WIMPS.

[Botany]

46. are those particles inside or outside of atoms?

I was taught that the universe was made up of 4 things:
Strong binding forces, weak binding forces, electromagnetism, and gravity
are those particles part of those 4 things?

[hue]

53. No Botany Dark Matter particles are not inside atoms.

Cold Dark Matter particles float around in/all over space and on a large scale they interact somehow with gravity. Ther is overwhelming indirect evidence that Dark Matter exists. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) probably interact via the Weak force somehow maybe with gravity. So the many detectors that experimentalists have set up inside mountains, mines, in outer space (The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) are searching for particles that leave some evidence of interacting with the detectors. Some detectors, for example, look for vibrations or signatures of WIMPS as they "bump" into crystal molecules and cause vibrations. Dark Matter particles do not interact with the electromagnetic force hence they cannot be seen.
Yes we were taught that the Universe is made up of 4 forces. They make up the forces in the Standard Model. Dark Matter particles go beyond the Standard Model. (Einstein did not believe in physics beyond the SM.) And the Standard Model was never really complete but physicists hope that the Higgs boson would help in completing it. Yet some questions remain about the Higgs and some physicists think that there are really several Higgs-type bosons and that this will be a bridge to supersymmetry. The mass of the Higgs boson that was found at the LHC last year falls exactly where a certain group of supersymmetry physicists predicted it would be.
This year and the next few years some aspects of physics will become clearer.

[firenewt]

31. Dark energy and dark matter are the result of the matter/anti-matter reaction. The mass of each

is totally converted to energy. Since matter basically condenses from energy, dark matter condenses from dark energy. At least that is what I think. I've been wrong before so consume at your own risk.

[WillyT]

35. K & R !!!

[RedCloud]

40. 2nd dimension replies, "Dark matter doesn't matter to us!"

[kickysnana]

47. I was expecting them to find it in a drawer in Karl Rove's office.

Everything he did seemed to involve the effects of dark matter.

[neverforget]

48. Regardless of what Republicans think, science is cool.

[triplepoint]

49. What is the relationship between ZPE & Dark Energy?

where ZPE = Zero Point Energy

That is meant as a serious question.
.
.
This is fiction(for now...):

[Manifestor_of_Light]

50. They have a show on TV about black holes.

Stuff goes in, nothing comes out.
It's called Hoarders.

My mother was a hoarder and it didn't bother her at all, unlike the people on the show.
It took me 6 years to clean it out after she died, going up there on weekends. She and her mother both lived thru the Depression so they were serious hoarders.

Really messed up my childhood. I really sympathize with the children on the show who were like i was. I could never have a birthday party with non-family, and no sleepovers with friends.

I think the event horizon is the city limit sign.

[MADem]

51. My dog just went out in the backyard and dropped some dark matter out there in the freezing cold!!!

That said, this is a fascinating development....we'll see what the future brings...

[sellitman]

52. Dark Matter = Dick Cheney

Any questions?

Glad I could clear that up for you.