Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thedoc on 09/02/2016 21:50:02

Title: Does dark matter have to be a particle?
Post by: thedoc on 09/02/2016 21:50:02

"sammysoames asked the Naked Scientists:
   I love all your shows thank you so much. Give everyone there my utmost gratitude. Does dark Matter have to be a particle? There are thoughts that gravity is so weak because it's escaping somewhere, some say to another universe. Does any evidence contradict that the effects of dark Matter are in fact the effects of gravity from outside our universe? How would we test that?

   
What do you think?

Title: Re: Does dark matter have to be a particle?
Post by: evan_au on 10/02/2016 11:09:14

Quote from: sammysoames

Does dark Matter have to be a particle?

No, there have been many different theories, and we can expect even more before the nature of Dark Matter is finally settled.

It is certain that there are several "Dark" things that make up the universe (including black holes and neutrinos), but the consensus seems to be that there can't be enough of them to account for the observed effects.

That's why the most popular theory at present involves some so-far-undiscovered weakly-interacting particle.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Alternative_theories