Astrophysics and Dark Matter

I love when scientists are baffled...and, not just because baffled is a fun word to say.

So, astrophysics is a kind of complicated thing.  Concepts that we don't fully understand, such as gravity, come into play.  And, on a massive scale.  We know a lot about gravity and how it should normally act, even if we don't understand why it happens.

Well, by observing how large bodies orbit other large things in space, scientists noticed that some things did not act the way they should.  They basically saw that planets further from the center orbited faster than would make sense for the size of the objects and the distance between them.  In some cases, the speeds involved should be enough for these planets to escape their orbit and float off into space.

It was like there is extra matter and unaccounted for gravity involved.  But, nothing could be seen.  This is the reasoning behind the theory of the existence of dark matter.  It's some sort of matter present in galaxies that cannot be detected.  It explains the discrepancies in the observed behavior of planetary bodies, and through these discrepancies the dark matter can be measured.

I've tried to make this simple so far.  I hope no one is lost.

So, scientists have studied and determined the amount of dark matter in a lot of galaxies.  But, now they found a monkey wrench.

It seems that the spiral galaxy NGC 4636 acts the way you would expect.  Further out from the center, the bodies slow down drastically in their orbit in a perfectly predictable way.

That's neat.  Here's why.

This means that it has little to no dark matter present in the galaxy.  What does that mean?  Well, it could be that one of the theories on the formation of a galaxy will come under question.  Scientists were working on theories that the dark matter present in galaxies had the gravitational force that originally attracted the gas to form stars and other bodies in the galaxy.

It may mean that the dark matter in a galaxy leaks away slowly and the other bodies slow down accordingly.

Also, this could mean that dark matter isn't real after all, and that the phenomenon is explained by a different theory, such as modified Newtonian dynamics.

What it really means is that astrophysicists have something new to argue about for at least another 5 years.  I really hope none of them lose too much sleep over this, but I know geeks.  They will.  It's what we do.

The Point Blank Critic