Dark Matter May Be Building Up In The Sun

I thought this was interesting and was curious about what some of our science minded members thought. So dark matter makes up for 83 % of the matter in our universe.( how the heck do they determine that?)
The article says the sun "sweeps" up dark matter as it(sun) moves thru our galaxy? The sun moves? Sorry if that is a dumb question, I didn't know.
Anyway I thought it would be something good to chew on here.

www.wired.com...

The sun could be a net for dark matter, a new study suggests. If dark matter happens to take a certain specific form, it could build up in our nearest star and alter how heat moves inside it in a way that would be observable from Earth.
Dark matter is the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but doesn’t interact with electromagnetic forces. Although the universe contains five times as much dark matter as normal matter, dark matter is completely invisible both to human eyes and every kind of telescope ever devised. Physicists only know it’s there because of its gravitational effect on normal matter. Dark matter keeps galaxies spinning quickly without flying apart and is responsible for much of the large-scale structure in the universe.
Current dark matter detectors are looking for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, that connect only with the weak nuclear force and gravity. Based on the most widely accepted theories, most experiments are tuned to look for a particle that is about 100 times more massive than a proton. The chief suspect is also its own antiparticle: Whenever a WIMP meets another WIMP, they annihilate each other.
“This is something that has always worried me,” said astroparticle physicist Subir Sarkar of the University of Oxford. If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the big bang, the particles should have completely wiped each other out by now. “Obviously that did not happen, we are here to prove it,” he said. “So something created an asymmetry of matter over antimatter,” letting a little bit of matter survive after all the antimatter was gone.

Whatever made regular matter beat out regular antimatter could have worked on dark matter as well, Sarkar suggests. If dark matter evolved similarly to regular matter, it would have to be much lighter than current experiments expect, only about 5 times the mass of a proton. That’s a suggestive number, Sarkar says.
“If it were five times heavier, it would get five times the abundance. That’s what dark matter is,” he said. “That’s the simplest explanation for dark matter in my view.”
The trouble is, these light particles are much more difficult to detect with current experiments. In a paper in the July 2 Physical Review Letters, Sarkar and Oxford colleague Mads Frandsen suggest another way to find light dark matter: Look to the sun.
Because lightweight dark matter particles wouldn’t vaporize each other when they meet, the sun should collect the particles the way snowballs collect more snow.
“The sun has been whizzing around the galaxy for 5 billion years, sweeping up all the dark matter as it goes,” Sarkar said.
The buildup of dark matter could solve a pressing problem in solar physics, called the solar composition problem. Sensitive observations of waves on the sun’s surface have revealed that the sun has a much easier time transporting heat from its interior to its surface than standard models predict it should.
Dark matter particles that interact only with each other could make up the difference. Photons and particles of regular matter bounce off each other on their way from the sun’s interior to its surface, so light and heat can take billions of years to escape. But because dark matter particles ignore all the regular matter inside the sun, they have less stuff in their way and can transport heat more efficiently.
Some puzzling results from dark matter detectors hint that these lightweight particles could have already been detected. Earlier this year, a germanium hockey puck in a mine in Minnesota called the Coherent Germanium Neutrino Technology (CoGeNT) detected a signal from a particle about 7 times the mass of the proton, though they’re not sure yet whether it’s dark matter. Another detector in Italy called DAMA has reported similar results.
“There’s an increasingly compelling body of evidence accumulating” that dark matter is just a few times as massive as a proton, Hooper said. “The jury is still out, but if this is really what’s going on, we should be able to know it with some confidence in the next year or so.”

Yes I know I could Google this and learn for myself, and I will, but I also like seeing the discussions here, to get a broader and more rich perspective.

Peace


[edit on 11-7-2010 by speculativeoptimist]

reply to post by speculativeoptimist



Very interesting and I will go back to read it later. However, right now I am concerned about the sunspot on the image you posted. It is suppose to face the earth in the next few days.

Thank you

Even though it has never been detected in any form. Reminds me of "ether" during the 1800's because the prevailing theories didn't work without it just like today's theories don't work without it. I say whoever wrote this piece has something filling them up.

Dark matter? Sounds like carbon - TAX IT!!

Seriously however, very interesting. I shall have to take some time to assimilate this.

S&F

reply to post by crazydaisy

Hmmm, I did not know about the positioning of the flare up. I'm sure there is a thread on it. I will check it out. Thanks for the reply.

reply to post by IamBoon

Agreed and todays physics are including the ether theory because like you said, it encompasses so much(everything?)
There is a very nice book on the subject called Science And The Akashic Field by Ervin Laszlo that basically promotes the idea of ether/akashic field being the ultimate paradigm, building on the TOE Theory of Everything.

Thanks for the reply IamBoon.

reply to post by PuterMan

Doh! That dang carbon tax...keep it out of science!

Peace

Dark Matter is a 'make it up as you go' sort of thing. While I hate to poke fun at my own religion - it does remind me of the way many christians treat god - "Well, God works in mysterious ways." "Dark Matter works in mysterious ways." When we finally realized Earth is not from the Milky Way (but, rather, a dwarf galaxy that was being absorbed by the Milky Way - hence why our orbital planes are so off-key from the Milky Way) and plotted the remains of our spawning galaxy, we realized it didn't work unless Dark Matter was in a spherical orientation around the galaxy (something that didn't fit with theories, either - but it must be so, because we need Dark Matter).

At this point - I choose which master to serve. No one can prove the universe works without God. Someone can prove, however, the universe does work without Dark Matter - which means it would be silly to attach that to my sense of identity and purpose, and counter-productive to the scientific process.

Everything out there is supposed to be Dark Matter.

Now it's not only responsible for holding the universe together, it's also supposed to be the super-effective heat-pipe that allows the sun to exist and work as it does.

In short - we don't have a clue why it works, so the answer is Dark Matter.

Doesn't sound all that much different from: "God did it." Which - as much as I believe in God - I also believe in Science as the best way to understand the mechanics of our universe... I believe God did it all - I just want to know how it works. And how do we find out how it works? Science. And here we have scientists attributing things to various mythological crea.... particles.... Need we remind these scientists of their function?

reply to post by Aim64C

Nice angle Aim64. I to have wondered about where religion ends and science meets. I have thought that just because science defines the sun as a burning mass of mostly hydrogen and helium, who is to say we are not just putting a contemporary label on something that could otherwise be considered God itself.
I guess it is our nature sometimes to obsessively define all that is in our world, for better or worse.

Thanks for the reply,
Peace

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


In my ideology - God built the universe through some grand mystical means that we will probably never be able to define or prove - perhaps God is even the seemingly anti-entropic function of life (which seems to go against entropy in becoming increasingly complex and growing in information content) and is the 'ultimate destination' of life's progression. In either case - we're here, and we have been given a brain to understand the universe - however that brain got there.

We can't go around placing our faith and trust in anything to do with science, other than the process of discovery, itself. I often develop two or more theories on the same thing that are completely and totally exclusive - and operate on two completely different principles, accepting that my entire understanding of the system can be way off-base.

When we place our faith in our understanding of a system - we ultimately do the most damage to the process of discovery. Religion - for all of its ills it gets blamed for, attempted to explain the universe - and people put their faith in that explanation of the universe - and were understandably upset when that was challenged via legitimate means.

I don't see religion and science as conflicting objectives - taken in the correct perspective. I believe in a higher order and purpose. I don't see any real way for any scientific discovery to up-end that belief. I see how new scientific discoveries can alter my view of how a higher power or order might interact with the universe - but I find that idea exciting.

It is a shame when people who propose new ideas on concepts (such as gravity) are often met with such hostility from the scientific community. It speaks that we are placing too much of our faith and identity in specific theories and not enough in the thrill of learning and understanding.

Of course, we'd be remiss to ignore the economic factor. Just as it hurts a religion when membership and donations decline - it hurts a scientific field when it is shown to be completely irrelevant. If someone comes along and demonstrates that gravity doesn't work the way we think it does - it kind of gets rid of the need for you to continue your research on gravitational fields, now doesn't it? And if you conjure up some new mysterious energy or particles that have to be responsible for the inconsistencies between theory and reality, then you have a whole new field to research - job security for the next ten to fifteen years.

More relevant to this particular thread - I have often wondered how reliable our understanding of a star's fusion process really is. Not to sound like an electric-universe theory proponent, but they do have a very good point - electrical forces are far stronger than gravitational. You have a super-heated ball of plasma (which conduct electricity) with very strong magnetic fields.

Fusion reactions are known to not only produce high temperatures - but to also generate very powerful electromagnetic fields. I believe any proper understanding of the sun would have to come out of a much better understanding of plasma and high-energy physics than we currently have. I am not convinced fusion even takes place near the core - it would seem to make more sense that fusion would take place inside of naturally formed 'filaments' of plasma and electromagnetic fields, rather than due to atmospheric pressures (which would quickly be over-ridden by the thermal and electromagnetic influences of fusion).

It would seem to me that this would be a more likely cause for the "overheating sun" inconsistency, over a non-reactive particle being a means of keeping the sun cool. Unless these particles are somehow generated from the fusion reaction (and thereby absorb some of the energy in their formation) - it seems like a very silly attempt to avoid admitting our entire model of stellar anatomy may have to be revised considerably (and we would have to build supercomputers with a thousand times the processing power to work on modeling it again - plasma is not a convenient thing to model in computers).

Of course, I also entertain the notion that the center of a star is a singularity (or, provided it isn't really a singularity - whatever a black hole really is). Due to some interesting properties that may exist as a black hole collapses, high intensity radiation near the event horizon collides upon itself to form particle radiation, which continues to rise in magnitude until matter (consisting primarily of hydrogen plasma - perhaps being derived from iron being forced to split - or perhaps by some other process) is ejected and distributed across the magnetic field of the collapsing black hole. Fusion eventually ensues as what we would call a star begins to form and a corona develops. Things are relatively stable for a while as the energy being radiated by the collapsing black hole is mostly converted into matter or is being absorbed by the stellar mass. However, as the event-horizon takes up less surface area, and the rate of collapse increases, more energy is dumped into the stellar mass, and electromagnetic forces begin to over-ride gravitational forces. This also results in heavier elements being formed in the middle layers of the stellar mass - lighter elements are formed near the most intense radiation during the last stages of collapse, but heavier elements are formed where the energy is absorbed and converted to heavier elements. Obviously - the outer layers are going to be mostly hydrogen and helium.

It's an 'off the hip' theory - mostly a random idea or thought that came to mind. I've no particular attachment to it - but it potentially leads to an oscillating system that could generate - well, our solar system. Where did the rocks come from, and why are they so closely oriented around where we are now? Current cosmological models don't really provide much in the way of resolving that. Of course, 'my ad-hoc model' doesn't really do much to explain a planar distribution of material (what I described would suggest spherical), and doesn't do much to explain why there would still be a sun where we are now - or where the mass for it came from. With no precedent to suggest black-holes can just pop into existence or behave in such a manner - it's not very solid.

But - I like to keep my brain running - even if it does wander off and get lost from time to time.

I think they're grasping at straws with this one.

Two wrongs don't make a right. The sun is a ball of plasma. Most (if not all) observable anomalies can be explained when one accepts this. Gravity is not the only driving force behind the sun. Dark matter/energy (in my opinion) is either low density matter thinly spread throughout the universe (not clumped into stars and planets etc hence not visible) or the Electromagnetic Force has been grossly under represented (the Standard Model ignores Electromagnetism).

The simple fact is that we cannot explain the existence of the universe without stepping outside of our field of experience, and into conjecture of some form.

Or in other words, we really don't have all the answers. Any of us.

[edit on 17-7-2010 by TheIrvy]

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
I thought this was interesting and was curious about what some of our science minded members thought. So dark matter makes up for 83 % of the matter in our universe.( how the heck do they determine that?)
[edit on 11-7-2010 by speculativeoptimist]

lets put this in a nutshell

Someone came along and said a Big Bang was how the universe was created, but then they realized that the physics didn't fit the theory, all of space was at the same temperature and if the big bang was the correct theory then the outer reaches of space would be considerably cooler than that at the centre.

What did they do?

They came up with another theory called: Inflation, they said Space inflates like a balloon and then this solved the temperature problem.

But then someone else came along and said:
"how come the Galaxies are not uniformed"?
Now this conflicted with the Inflation theory

What did they do?

They came up with Dark Matter and added it to the theory

And today the Inflation theory still stands all thanks to this invisible Platonic Demiurge they call "Dark Matter"

reply to post by Seventytwo

..and if the big bang was the correct theory then the outer reaches of space would be considerably cooler than that at the centre.

Any source for this? And what exactly do you mean by the centre? There is no centre of the big bang, unless you thought of Earth as a proverbial centre. Did you mean that a big bang without inflation predicts a cooler universe in the past than we observe??

They came up with another theory called: Inflation, they said Space inflates like a balloon and then this solved the temperature problem.

Just to clarify, a big bang was always imagined as a surface of an inflating baloon, without center. The Inflation theory reffered to theoretical high speed of this inflation in the first instant of the universes existence, not to the existence of expansion itself.

But then someone else came along and said: "how come the Galaxies are not uniformed"? Now this conflicted with the Inflation theory
What did they do?

They came up with Dark Matter and added it to the theory

The primary evidence for dark matter and the reason they came up with it was the observation of too high speed of orbiting stars in galaxies. This was not much related to big bang or inflation.


[edit on 17-7-2010 by Maslo]

reply to post by Maslo


That's just a speculative view without going into the details,
The whole point of the big bang is that everything started from a point and exploded out or am I missing something?

You may correct me if I'm wrong but It was my understanding that Inflation was not a part of the original theory, Inflation was added later to explain the consistent temperature of the universe.

I thought Dark Matter was theorised because of a flaw in the Inflation theory?
It was my impression that this is the reason Inflation is the accepted theory.

Thanks Maslo it's always good to be enlightened

all the best

reply to post by Seventytwo


The big bang was not an explosion, it was like an expansion of a baloons surface. Every point on an expanding baloons surface is moving away from every other point, and the speed of this movement depends on their distance. It is a good analogy. A picture (or an animation) is worth a thousand words:

www.astro.ucla.edu...

en.wikipedia.org...

I believe you are basicaly right about the inflation, except that it was not a reason for dark matters existence - inflation and dark matter are quite unrelated. Maybe you confused it with dark energy, which is more or less the same thing as inflation, only not as rapid and present even today. Maybe it is some left-over from the universes more turbulent past?

To the topic: I dont think there could be much dark matter in the sun, otherwise we would have noticed some discrepancy in its mass. And how would this dark matter heat up in the suns core in the first place, or shed this heat later, if it does not interact much with ordinary matter?

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

Probably in their attempt to dumb down the definition of dark matter, they got the definition wrong in that article which says: " Dark matter is the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but doesn’t interact with electromagnetic forces." That definition is wrong, because in some cases we actually detect it BECAUSE of its interaction with electromagnetic radiation (starlight) via gravitational lensing, so don't get your astronomy lessons from Wired, is the moral of that story. They probably meant to say that it doesn't interact with ordinary matter via electromagnetic forces, which is a different claim.

The definition from Wikipedia is more accurate:
en.wikipedia.org...

dark matter is matter that is inferred to exist from gravitational effects on visible matter and background radiation, but is undetectable by emitted or scattered electromagnetic radiation.

Also I think it's fair to point out our solar system doesn't exhibit the symptoms of dark matter. Look at the orbital periods of the planets:

en.wikipedia.org...
Planet: Orbit In Years:
Mercury 0.24
Venus 0.62
Earth 1.00
Mars 1.88
Jupiter 11.86
Saturn 29.46
Uranus 84.01
Neptune 164.8

Our planets follow something analogous to the A curve on this graph, meaning the further from the center, the more slowly they travel:

This isn't news but I don't know any other way to get a light background to make this graph show up:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/12395c457304.png[/atsimg]
Rotation curve of a typical spiral galaxy: predicted (A) and observed (B). Dark matter can explain the velocity curve having a 'flat' appearance out to a large radius

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

If the galaxies worked the same way, the outermost parts of the galaxies would rotate more slowly too, but they are rotating faster than gravity calculations say they should, so that's why dark matter was invented. You asked how they came up with 84%, that's how much would be needed to account for the rotation of galaxies we see (The difference between curve A and curve B in that graph)

The gravity of the visible galaxies in the cluster would be far too small for such fast orbits, so something extra was required. This is known as the "missing mass problem". Based on these conclusions, Zwicky inferred that there must be some non-visible form of matter which would provide enough of the mass and gravity to hold the cluster together.

Much of the evidence for dark matter comes from the study of the motions of galaxies.

Hey thanks for the additions:
Seventytwo, Maslo, and Arbitrageur!
I am not well versed in these subjects so I am learning from the sidelines, but I appreciate your perspectives.
I guess if there is a bunch of "nothingness," they have to start somewhere and giving it a name and postulating on it is the beginning.
So what is up with the sun "absorbing or sweeping up" dark matter?
Does the dark matter contribute to the sun's energy in any way?
Peace

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
Hey thanks for the additions:
Seventytwo, Maslo, and Arbitrageur!

So what is up with the sun "absorbing or sweeping up" dark matter?

You're welcome.

We don't know the sun is doing that, it's speculative.

From your source:

“It’s a speculative idea, but it’s testable,” Sarkar said. “And the tools to test it are coming on line pretty fast. We don’t have to wait 20 years.”...

“There’s an increasingly compelling body of evidence accumulating” that dark matter is just a few times as massive as a proton, Hooper said. “The jury is still out, but if this is really what’s going on, we should be able to know it with some confidence in the next year or so.”

Well that sounds pretty optimistic to predict we'll know more about dark matter within the next year, since we've been looking for it for decades without success.

But I can come up with a speculative idea that elves are eating the lettuce from my garden. When I set up a camera to test that theory, then I'll see if it's really elves or not. It might just turn out to be rabbits.

That's sort of the case with this speculative theory about the sun scooping up dark matter, we're still waiting for it to be tested and the evidence of the test to be presented. It may be more likely than my elves hypothesis, but I don't know how much more likely.

I've been thinking about this for a while now and would like to ask these questions:

Could Dark Matter build up in the Sun create a visible void or hole?

would a density of these particles create something that would look like an hole in the Sun?

Look at the the Solar symbol and the Monad below to see what I mean.

upload.wikimedia.org...

This is an ancient solar symbol featuring a circle with its center marked with a dot, It is the astronomical symbol/astrological symbol for the Sun, and the ancient Egyptian sign for "sun" or "Ra" in the hieroglyphic writing system and It is also the Alchemical symbol for Gold.

I've always been fascinated with this symbol and the question: why did it have a black dot in the centre?

I've been pondering the idea that we could be witnessing the creation of what looks like a Black hole but is actually a Black Sun.

There is a persistent belief in alchemic and hermetic tradition in the existence of two suns: a hidden one of pure "philosophical gold," consisting of the essential Fire conjoined with aether, and the apparent one of profane "material gold." The "dark, consuming fire" of the material sun leads to its being called the "Dark" or "Black Sun."

Sol Niger (black sun) is also the name of the result of the first stage of the Opus Magnum in alchemy, The complete Opus magnum (Great Work) ends with the production of gold(Sun)

Alchemists use the chemistry of the universe for their blue print and they say: "AS Above So Below"

So perhaps the Sun is going through a transformation?
Could our Sun and density of DM give birth to a black sun?
Could we be witnessing a binary evolutionary process both spiritually and physically?

Imagine the Solar Symbol and read the quote below from H. P. Blavasky describing the "Central Sun" with the Dark matter hypothesis in mind:

“HE the Point — the centre (which is everywhere) of the circle (which is nowhere), the ethereal, spiritual fire, the soul and spirit of the all-pervading, mysterious ether— the despair and puzzle of the materialist…" - Isis Unveiled.

she is talking about the invisible force of Dark Matter or hidden force in the spirit of the Sun, the black dot IE Black Sun(central Sun)

I don't mean to ramble on here just getting my thoughts out as they come, I just get the feeling that the OP's post is a very important.

all the best.

reply to post by Seventytwo

Intriguing questions Seventytwo! I was surprised to find the Third Reich utilization of the black sun symbol, representative of a socialist goal by SS Heinrich Himmler and displayed at the Wewelsburg castle, a center for the new world.

According to studies commissioned by the Third Reich regarding the beliefs of the pre-Christianized Germanic peoples, it was estimated that these pagan ancestors believed in "a grand force or a grand god in the background of the multiplicity of gods and spirits who becomes visible in a multiple way in the universe, on earth and in the life of all beings and facts". So the sun was interpreted as "only one, but a very important and big expression (of that force or god) in the surrounding events and in the life of the ancestors"

A non-Nazi and particular use of the Black Sun symbol, albeit for now rather unobtrusive and probably not likely to become widespread, is starting to be claimed as a cultural bequest by individuals who want to have at their disposal an emblem (that they'd rather call a Sol Invictus than a Black Sun) that expresses their steadfast belonging to the Western civilization, agnosticism, free-thinking, severance from the Abrahamic religions. It is not an organized movement but rather a small number of people who apparently had the same idea or were exposed to this Sol Invictus notion via the Web and appropriated it.

I appreciate your "rambling," tis fascinating stuff and I like Blavatsky's angle, she is one of my favorite esotericist, and Isis unveiled both shattered and created new paradigms within my understanding of things.

Could we be witnessing a binary evolutionary process both spiritually and physically?

Good point and I wonder the same thing. The sun has ben behaving in a fairly unique way, no?
It seems dark matter is both baryonic and non-baryonic and still much of a mystery to scientists.
They are searching for it in places like under the Antarctic ice and deep underground in Minnesota. www.telegraph.co.uk...

An international team of physicists believe they may have detected two particles of the elusive substance for the first time at the bottom of a mine shaft.
Should the findings be confirmed it will have an Earth-shattering effect on our understanding of the make up of the cosmos. It will also prove once and for all the existence of the substance first hypothesised 80 years ago.

Scientists working on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS), in a disused iron ore mine in Minnesota, have announced that they had detected two weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs), that are thought to make up dark matter.

Dr Kane said results from bigger and more sensitive experiments would be available in a couple of months.
Confirmation of the particles would also constitute the first evidence for a new feature of nature, called supersymmetry, that physicists have been seeking as avidly as the astronomers have been seeking dark matter. Supersymmetry argues that every particle in the universe is paired with a twin somewhere else.

The subject grows more intriguing with each inquiry, and is an exciting field of study that when figured out will create a giant leap for science.

Peace

I think the most amazing part of this thread is the fact that the OP didn't know the Sun moved.

Really.....just............really???


Please don't reproduce. :/