The universe and dark matter, page 1

The universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy," says Saul Perlmutter, leader of the Supernova Cosmology Project headquartered at Berkeley Lab, "and we don't know what either of them is." He credits University of Chicago cosmologist Michael Turner with coining the phrase "dark energy" in an article they wrote together with Martin White of the University of Illinois for Physical Review Letters.

In the May 28 Science article, Perlmutter and Neta Bahcall, Jeremiah Ostriker, and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton use the concept of dark energy in discussing their graphic approach to understanding the past, present, and future status of the universe. The Cosmic Triangle is the authors' way of presenting the major questions cosmology must answer: "How much matter is in the universe? Is the expansion rate slowing down or speeding up? And, is the universe flat?"
Link

What are your thoughts on the questions posed? I’ve also hear that our matter only makes up about 20 %. So what is this dark matter and on what level does it exist?

[edit on 27-6-2004 by DaTruth]

Originally posted by browha
Dark matter is the same stuff as normal matter, it's just that we cant see it.

No, the results of big bang nucleosynthesis calculations contradict this. Only 10% of the matter can normal, baryonic, matter (source).

To be honest, I don't like dark matter and dark energy. Add in the amazingly accurate results of MOND and I think maybe we have to take a step back and look at everything critically again. What we have here now is a theory that worked pretty well, but some observations didn't work with the theory, so we fixed it with invisible matter and energy. Maybe there really is dark matter and energy, but the fact is that we can't verify our theories until we detect it. Maybe the dark matter is really normal matter and we screwed up big bang nucleosynthesis. Maybe we find out that there are supersymmetric versions of particles, or that monopoles or cosmic strings really exist. I don't know, but I doubt that many cosmologists are really comfortable with dark matter and dark energy.

Until we have a better theory, I say we stick to this one, with its problems.

"My God, its full of stars!"
  Posted 19 days ago with 83 member flags

Newfound "super-Earth"
  Posted 8 days ago with 56 member flags

Enceladus Backlit by Saturn
  Posted 2 days ago with 49 member flags

Mysterious Signal From Outer Space - Is Someone Trying To Contact Us?
  Posted 10 days ago with 29 member flags

Toronto teens send Lego man into space: video
  Posted 16 days ago with 28 member flags

Amazing new photo of Earth. The Blue Marble 2012
  Posted 12 days ago with 22 member flags

It\'s already begun?The reverse of the Magnetic Poles.Sun and Earth.
  Posted 18 days ago with 21 member flags

NASA Probe Captures 1st Video of Moon\'s Far Side
  Posted 9 days ago with 19 member flags

Newest topics, updated in real-time:

Newest topics getting flags, in real-time:

Newest topics getting replies, in real-time: