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Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: gsmollin on 30/12/2004 00:27:31

Title: Have the Pioneer Spacecraft Discovered Dark Matter
Post by: gsmollin on 30/12/2004 00:27:31
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=9&u=/latimests/gravitymayloseitspull

Tracking data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft shows thay are slowing down faster than gravitational theory predicts. There have been many theories to explain it, but I think the best is that the mass of the solar system is greater than we think. The extra mass would be dark matter. I think it makes perfect sense, since large amounts of extra mass are present in the galaxies, some of it must be right here at home.

What do you think?
Title: Re: Have the Pioneer Spacecraft Discovered Dark Matter
Post by: gisburnuk on 04/01/2005 18:05:50
CDM or (Cold Dark Matter) interacts with baryonic matter through gravity or when a CDM particle collides with a baryon which then causes them to oscillate. With this in mind shouldn't we look elsewere for the existence of dark matter? Experiments can be undertaken for the sensitive detection of Dark Matter.
We cannot account for the all this 'missing mass' in our universe  but we should find alternative ways of detecting its existence.

M Theory for String Theory, stay focused....
Title: Re: Have the Pioneer Spacecraft Discovered Dark Matter
Post by: gsmollin on 04/01/2005 21:23:30
I hadn't heard about collisions between CDM particles and baryons. Can you give me a reference to this theory?

As far as looking for them, that's the problem. We can't see them beacause they are postulated to not react to electroweak or strong forces. While I would expect there to be some CDM floating around the lab, I have no idea of its distribution. I would expect the CDM to carry energy and momentum. Since it cannot radiate its gravitational binding energy, it would not clump together, but would stay diffuse in a halo around baryonic matter in the solar system (and galaxy, and cluster). I think that is why it does not show up in the inner solar system, but does perturb the outer planets. For years, we have searched for the tenth planet, so to explain the outer planet's orbits. I speculate the missing mass is not baryonic, but the closest-to-home evidence for dark matter.

It would be very exciting for a space mission to chart the distribution of this mass, both in the ecliptic and the polar directions, similar to Pioneer 10 and 11.

Of course, a real mission has to be able to address all the other possibilities, not just my pet theory.
Title: Re: Have the Pioneer Spacecraft Discovered Dark Matter
Post by: gisburnuk on 30/01/2005 20:34:46
Sorry if I'm a little slow to react. I had stumbled across a bit of news for you 'gsmollin' regarding CDM interactions. www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=2840
 
 


M Theory for String Theory, stay focused....
Title: Re: Have the Pioneer Spacecraft Discovered Dark Matter
Post by: gisburnuk on 30/01/2005 20:48:46
Although my previous statement underlined CDM interaction with baryonic matter, the article that you have read clearly states a reversed order of that, 'baryonic interaction (through gravity) with CDM. Nevertheless their is a combined interaction between the two.

M Theory for String Theory, stay focused....
Title: Re: Have the Pioneer Spacecraft Discovered Dark Matter
Post by: gsmollin on 31/01/2005 18:31:49
quote:
Originally posted by gisburnuk

CDM or (Cold Dark Matter) interacts with baryonic matter through gravity or when a CDM particle collides with a baryon which then causes them to oscillate...



My question was about the "collision" and "oscillation". The gravitational interaction is the definition of dark matter.

The reference was interesting. According this this work, universal structure was bottoms-up. The question of top-down vs. bottoms-up organization in the universe has been an issue for many years in cosmology. Bottoms-up always seemed intuitively obvious to me, but intuition is not science.