C
CalliArcale
Guest
I had a thought in another thread (RobNissen's thread on comets) and thought I'd share it here for further elaboration.<br /><br />bonzelite has postulated that a significant number of comets (but not all of them, perhaps not even a majority) formed through accumulation of material in the dark spaces between star systems. If this were true, it would suggest that there is far more material in those dark spaces (or far more concentrations of it) than we realize. Since I don't know enough on this subject, I want to ask the question: is this plausible? And could the rate of extrasolar comet formation be used to deduce a likely amount of cold dark matter? After all, that's basically what these comets would be forming from.<br /><br />There is material in interstellar space. It is very, very diffuse, to the point of being virtually a vacuum. There's no sign of any material there dense enough to form into an object of more than negligible size. But given the enormous space between stars, could it be possible for slight irregularities in the interstellar medium, if it is much denser in places than we realize, to lead to occasional formation of small bodies? It seems beyond reason to think that it could give birth to stars, but is it reasonable for this tenuous cold dark matter to occasionally give birth to objects of comparatively negligible mass, such as comets? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>