VIRGOHI21 and Dark Matter

[iamjman]

So I heard that an estimated 50 million light-years from Earth, they found a large mass of hydrogen a hundred million times the mass of the Sun. The cloud is rotating way too fast to be held together by itself though, so some other force must be holding it together, and they assumed that that force is gravity.<br /><br />So what was there that they couldn't see? Dark Matter, according to the "experts." Galaxies also rotate too fast, but the invention of dark matter helps smooth out all the elegant equations astronomers use these days. According to Dr Robert Minchin, of Cardiff University: "From its speed, we realised that VIRGOHI21 was a THOUSAND TIMES more massive than could be accounted for by the observed hydrogen atoms alone."<br /><br />That cloud we can see, VIRGOHI21 is really a thousand times more massive than we can see? Give me a break. When are they finally going to drop this dark matter theory, and the theory that the gravity we experience on Earth rules the Universe?

 

[enigma10]

You make it sound like a conspiracy theory political agenda.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"<font color="#333399">An organism at war with itself is a doomed organism." - Carl Sagan</font></em> </div>

 

[doubletruncation]

Why is it so reasonable to suppose that the force of gravity that we experience on local scales is different from the force of gravity that exists on vast scales but unreasonable to suppose that there are vasts amounts matter that don't interact electromagnetically? No one is ruling out the possibility that a modification to gravity (or something more exotic than that) is responsible for dark matter observations, and I see no reason why exotic matter hypotheses should be ruled out either. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[dragon04]

<font color="yellow">For example, an ejected supermassive black hole can be quite massive and yet bare of stars and not violate the Toomre criterion.</font><br /><br />What force could possibly "eject" a supermassive BH? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>