A computer simulation shows how invisible dark matter coalesces in halos (shown in yellow). Photograph: Science Photo Library


Has dark matter finally been detected?

For 80 years, it has eluded the finest minds in science. But tonight it appeared that the hunt may be over for dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance that accounts for three-quarters of the matter in the universe.

In a series of coordinated announcements at several US laboratories, researchers said they believed they had captured dark matter in a defunct iron ore mine half a mile underground. The claim, if confirmed next year, will rank as one the most spectacular discoveries in physics in the past century.

Full story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/17/dark-matter-detected

Awesome

2nd

I've been seeing these headlines - this is very exciting! Thanks for posting a link here at m2.

My original interpretation was that they had physically captured dark matter on earth. Then it occurred to me that there is a lab in an old iron mine for said purpose. Have they repaired that lab in Japan yet? The one that lost hundreds of water tubes a few years back? They were working on detection of neutrinos or some such.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34511384


Scientists are now proposing the existence of "dark stars."

I think we need to understand dark matter first before we take the next leap.

ALL matter is dark when there is no light shining onto it.

Maybe they mean "sinister" matter, you know, evil with malicious intentions.

Wow that sounds like a very boring occupation.

My thoughts are that they have not even found and been able to measure a particle of any kind and now they imagine and dare to speculate that they have found some "dark matter" particle?

Baloney.

Number one, What would cause it to earn the title "matter" at all? We can't even call a particle that we can "see" "matter" because it can't be observed as a particle because it becomes a wave when observed.

Those guys are probably just going insane down in that underground complex and they are seeing and imagining things and creating things with their minds.

I think that if "dark matter" exists, it exists in a different time dimension and that is why it can't be seen, and does not reflect light.

wow your answer is very stimulating its true dark matter isn't suppose to reflect light cause if it did our skies at night wouldn't be well "dark"

science IS boring

90% of science consists of taking a measurement and writing it down

and then taking another measurement and writing it down

and then taking another measurement and writing it down

ad infinitum

and then sometimes when you look at what you wrote down (weeks later) sometimes you say "why did it do that?"

and then it gets exciting

You are very cavalier about criticizing something you appear to misunderstand.



Great question! Unless its rhetorical, of course.



What we call matter is matter, because we call it matter - just as it has always been. Matter is not what we once thought it was, but that doesn't make it any less what it is... which is matter.



Why don't you learn something about what they actually do before making completely baseless speculations like this? I know, baseless speculation is easier than learning. I was friends with a grad student who assisted physicists engaged in something very similar. Their job was not the least bit boring. Computers controlled and observed their equipment, and performed all tasks which they would consider tedious. They spent their time doing the same thing most physicists do... you know... physicist stuff... writing grant proposals, perhaps teaching, writing papers for publications. Many of them were quite excited by their work, and maintained a childlike fascination with learning more about the universe.

I am always learning something. Did you read the article? All they seemed to have found is a vibration. Big deal. And they are all excited about that.

I figured you would respond in such a way. The reason I said it must be 'boring' is because of the way they described what they were doing. ("waiting" for a rare moment when something they call "dark matter" passed through and knocked into an atomic nucleus.) The 'waiting' and 'watching' for a rare moment is what I imagine would be very boring. Personally I would probably fall asleep.

I find it interesting that they think that 'dark matter' might be linked to the reason 'time' only moves forward and not backwards (because 'time' is totally connected and dependent on matter and space and the speed of light etc. etc.)

They are all excited because they observed a vibration, and they think it might be "invisible ("dark") matter." Okay.

Yet if I told them that I saw an 'invisible' being at the foot of my bed massaging my feet as I returned from an out of body trip from another dimensional universe they would laugh their a$$es off at me. And they are all excited about a tiny vibration. Yep... boring.

It was a really nice foot massage. When I entered my physical body and became fully conscious in my body, in the physical world, I could no longer feel or see the "invisible" person who had been massaging my feet.



That is what I call exciting.

Yes, I believe in "dark" matter, because I believe in other dimensional universes that have a different spacetime clock. I think they exist right here, right now, same as we do.

But of course they are scientists and I am just an ignorant person who hallucinates and believe in aliens.