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THE HANDSTAND |
AUGUST 2003 |
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DARK ENERGY, DARK MATTER Researchers have spent decades searching for particles that could make-up dark matter, so far to no avail. More elusive still is dark energy, a force that makes up roughly three-quarters of the Universe and is pushing the cosmos apart. Some hope that a planned satellite called SNAP will help us understand these dark entities. Dark matter a hitherto unknown phenomena that evidently has a diffuse gravitational impact on galaxies and affects the speed with which individual galaxies orbit.This matter is thought to take up 27% of galactic space but its origin and also its progress, as though expanding clouds of matter,that is believed to be increasing. It is understood that dark energy, another recently discovered energy force, moulds the galaxies, as it were containing them in a firm grasp... but nobody has yet found out ofwhat particle types, or how this energy functions. A galactic phenomenon called a quasar has a blackhole at the centre - it is supposed that the centre of our own galaxy has one, This sucks in gas; studying a quasar that has no galactic surround it becomes apparent that where the dark matter in the surrounding space forms a border with the gas of the quasar there is a shock wave occurring and this visual effect has given scientists in Israel and Harvard, and presumably the entire astronomical community, clues that they may follow up, possibly, to achieve some knowledge of this mystery.The light that streams from the Quasar reveals at this boundary that ionization occurs and the gas of the quasar becomes transparent delineating the boundary in two alternate peaks of light intensity. However reading alternative studies, the "positive" statements re. dark matter - as 27% of the material in the universe - I read a text from the University of California where it is assumed or believed that this stuff comprises 90% of matter in the Universe. These people are looking for the particle that must represent it - they cannot find it and make out that deep earth experiments that hope to catch and define such a particle are a waste of time. Weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs are characterised by this research center as the potential..."These are heavy relative to the protons and neutrons that make up atoms, and so have strong gravitational effects. Otherwise they hardly influence normal matter at all."(jonathan Feng and colleagues Uof C) Gamma Rays at a certain energy that pervade all space, in some places more evident than others, are thought to be the place where this dark matter might be revealed. These particular gamma rays are understood to have been released by the Big Bang and if you are a partisan of Big Bang theory then you will be anxiously awaiting the evidence that may be passed to us recorded by our space projects, Hubble etc. A new alarm is the rumour that the Hubble space sattelite will be broken up soon to prepare for the launch of yet another satelite that either requires the same orbit, or whose masters do not require conflict of interest between different research centres. This new rumour about the Hubble Spacecraft has led to a minor uproar of distressed complaint - though I do believe scientists often loose their cool and shout at one another at conferences, rather than resorting to polite missiles in e-mails. There are for instance two favourite theories in reference to this dark matter one of which infers that there may be an unknown hidden dimension to the universe; another theory projects that gravity studies will release a new generation of particles. The confrontation over the life-span of Hubble may well involve some of these researches.Steven Beckwith, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, pointed to Hubble's successes, including many which had not been predicted when it was being developed. "Dark energy was not even something people were talking about observationally in 1996/97," he said. "Hubble has unique capabilities that provide compelling science opportunities not just to 2010 but beyond. Hubble has not reached the limits of its capability." ..two famous hubble pictures
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