Dark matter is more valuable than gold': Wobbly galaxies help shine a light on the universe's strangest stuff

[Admin]

Scientists have used the wobble of the Milky Way and what are known as "cosmic lighthouses" to shine a light on the mystery of dark matter.

Dark matter is more valuable than gold': Wobbly galaxies help shine a light on the universe's strangest stuff : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

But, when I tried to pay for my new car with "dark matter", the dealer insisted on gold or a personal check. Apparently, it is hard to keep that "dark matter" stuff in even a "dark matter wallet". That seems to be because it is even less interactive with things that matter than cryptocurrency.

 

[El Hado Helado]

Dark matter more valuable than Gold? Who has a torch to look for mining it? Who will buy this terrible hoax?
How much per oz?
What has more practical uses, Dark Matter or BitCoin?

 

[billslugg]

The average density of DM required to explain the disc like rotation of galaxies is only about two proton masses per cubic meter. The Solar System might contain a few micrograms in total.

 

[El Hado Helado]

The average density of DM required to explain the disc like rotation of galaxies is only about two proton masses per cubic meter. The Solar System might contain a few micrograms in total.

Thus, you support my proposal, there is no dark matter, as a matter of fact, all matter is dark (Pink Floyd)
Simply, we don't see it because of its low density, not interacting with light in a visible grade. Danke!
Gesund +

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The average density of DM required to explain the disc like rotation of galaxies is only about two proton masses per cubic meter. The Solar System might contain a few micrograms in total.

So, if we UNDER-estimated the density of regular matter in free space by only 2 proton masses per cubic meter, we would be kidding ourselves about the existence of "dark matter" being something different than regular matter that we just don't see.

Which brings me to the question: What is our actual observational evidence for the density of baryonic matter in space beyond our heliopause? And, what is our basis for extrapolating any such measurement to the entire galaxy?

 

[El Hado Helado]

If density of matter in outer space is two protons per cubic meter: What is the number of photons crossing that cubic meter, or a more appropriate dimension, in a certain time?
From this, what are chances of photon-proton clashes, or of the Breit-Wheeler events, or the photon-photon clashes proposed by José Comas-Solá, as another reason, besides Doppler effect, for the Shift to Red?
As matter is not uniformly distributed in the space, but scattered: To what extent this can influence our image of Universe, and its fate, blow-up to a near absolute zero uniform state, where any work is impossible, or a Big Crunch, gravity pulling back matter into a ball of strings?

 

[billslugg]

Thus, you support my proposal, there is no dark matter, as a matter of fact, all matter is dark (Pink Floyd)
Simply, we don't see it because of its low density, not interacting with light in a visible grade. Danke!
Gesund +

No, I do not support your proposal. I have no interest in looking at your proposal. I do not try and understand anything outside of the Standard Model.

 

[El Hado Helado]

What you call 'Standard model'?, please describe how do you summarize it, I'd say is a conjecture.
Simply, dark matter does not exist, part of discussions about this may have roots in astrophysicists trying to continue in receiving funding for writing speculative papers, those who make fund assignment are illiterate in the field.
Gesund +

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Bill, Please address my question about how you support your statement about the density of "dark matter" in our solar system being only "2 proton masses per cubic meter". I am not looking for a citation of somebody else saying the same thing, I am looking for what observations that estimate is based on.

I do think that is very important to understand.

I would be surprised if we are actually capable of detecting 2 protons real matter (or 2 neutral hydrogen atoms) per cubic meter at any great distance from Earth, except perhaps by voyager data. And, that data set is an extremely limited data to try to apply to our entire galaxy. And, we have been speculating about what dark matter could be long before the Voyager spacecraft reached our Sun's heliopause, where the data might be representative of interstellar galactic space.

So, let's talk about the observational basis for the theories that you do support.

 

[billslugg]

No thanks. If you don't like my comments then just ignore them. To quote you from 1/1/2023, at 10:35 PM in the Photons thread:

"Bill, reading your irrelevant replys [sic] is getting tiresome."

I would not want to make you tired. I'm doing you a favor.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Well, I received an e-mail notification of a post by Bill which seems to have been deleted when I look here. That post seemed to say that he is not planning to address my question. but maybe he had second thoughts and that is why his post is missing, now?

Anyway, I took a moment to do some searching, and found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_medium .

There is a table in that link that shows densities of matter (not "dark matter") in various parts of interstellar space. It shows numbers far higher than Bill's post indicated for "dark matter" mass density, which is theorized to be much greater than normal matter density (on average).

The Wikipedia numbers range from 0.2 particles per cubic centimeter, which is 200,000 particles per cubic meter, to values 10 million times higher than that. And, it provides the observational techniques that the table entries are base on.

So measuring any of those listed interstellar particle densities with a precision sufficient to show that 2 out of at least 200,000 particles are "missing" seems unlikely, and I doubt that is the actual basis for thinking that "dark matter" is six times the density of normal, observed matter.

Perhaps Bill is mistaken about the amount of dark matter mass that would be in our solar system?

Consider his posted statement:
"The average density of DM required to explain the disc like rotation of galaxies is only about two proton masses per cubic meter. The Solar System might contain a few micrograms in total." That does not make sense, considering that our solar system contains the Sun, Jupiter and many other planetary bodies that weigh substantially more than 1/6 of "a few micrograms" of the "dark matter", considering that dark matter is supposed to be, on average, 6 times the normal matter mass.

 

[billslugg]

I have a personal policy of not understanding but one model of physics at a time. Right now I am not understanding the Standard Model. The other models will have to wait. So far, I have successfully made it through 72 years of life using this philosophy. How well have you done?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Trying to put some scientific facts into this thread:

The estimated density of "dark matter" at the galactic position of Earth is estimated at 0.39 x10^-27 GeV/cm^3. See https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4434/8/2/37

The mass of a proton, in GeV is 0.938 GeV See https://profmattstrassler.com/2024/...-proton-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/

So, that calculates out to a density of dark matter equivalent to 3.7x10^-28 proton per cubic centimeter.

Considering the densities of regular matter "particles", which are mostly protons, measured in space being something like 1 or more per cubic centimeter (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_medium ) I am not seeing how the amount of "dark matter" can be said to be about 6 times the amount of regular matter. It appears to be 10^28 times smaller density than the density of regular matter.

This is not making sense to me. Does somebody have another explanation of how the estimated density of "dark matter" compare to measurements of regular matter in space?

If so, please provide references to the information you use, not just unsupported assertive statements.