ESO to announce "unprecedented discovery" on October 16

[cubinator]

53 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

Trying to imagine what that would do to the market. lol

Someday, we're going to be rich.

That would make dirt more expensive than gold.

[YNM]

6 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

What implications does this have for the whole dark matter/dark energy "we don't really understand 95% of the Universe" paradox?

 

6 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

None.

Actually, it's not none : It's slight.

The "trouble" with gravitational waves are that their direction isn't a point : it's a four-lobe. So when you have a signal, it's hard to tell exactly where it comes, like you'd do with optical or radio telescope.

Why did I mention such ? Well, the old "premise" of dark matter are that they only interact gravitationally : black holes (mind the plural), to some extent, fulfill the premise. It's massive enough to disrupt light; but it can be sparse enough not to "die"(collide) every single encounter. Back then, we couldn't rule out that dark matter aren't black holes, both theoretically and observationally. Now, we can do so theoretically; If there were black holes they'd collide ever so sparsely. The problem is that we haven't been able to get point sources for these events, so telling how's it happening inbetween two galaxies is bard, let alone how much in a galaxy.

[StrandedonEarth]

 

Relevant APOD:

Edit: I see some grey elements, with no legend for those. I assume they don't exist in nature and were synthesized in a lab or reactor

On 2017-10-19 at 4:11 PM, LordFerret said:

Trying to imagine what that would do to the market. lol

Forget the gold, cheap fuel cells for all!

Edited October 25, 2017 by StrandedonEarth

[PakledHostage]

5 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Edit: I see some grey elements, with no legend for those. I assume they don't exist in nature and were synthesized in a lab or reactor

I wondered that too, so I looked up a handful of them.Of the ones I looked at: Radium (Ra), Radon (Rn) and Technetium (Tc), all are radioactive decay products of more common elements like Uranium. They exist in small quantities in nature but are not stable. I don't have time to look them all up but it seems plausible that they are all decay products of heavier, more stable elements and exist in nature, albeit in small quantities.

[Diche Bach]

Dark Matter

Quote

Dark matter is a hypothetical type of matter distinct from baryonic matter (ordinary matter such as protons and neutrons), neutrinos and dark energy.

Emphasis added.

Quote

Dark matter has never been directly observed; however, its existence would explain a number of otherwise puzzling astronomical observations.^[1][2] The name refers to the fact that it does not emit or interact with observable electromagnetic radiation, such as light, and is thus invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum.^[3]

Emphasis added

Quote

Although dark matter has not been directly observed, its existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects such as the motions of baryonic matter,^[4] gravitational lensing, its influence on the universe's large-scale structure, on the formation of galaxies, and its effects on the cosmic microwave background.

 

Edited November 12, 2017 by Diche Bach
fix

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Diche Bach said:

Dark Matter

Emphasis added.

Emphasis added

 

Technically its dark gravity; its material nature is an assumption; space time is curved by the composite of matter and energy.

[Diche Bach]

On 11/12/2017 at 6:03 PM, PB666 said:

Technically its dark gravity; its material nature is an assumption; space time is curved by the composite of matter and energy.

It seems to me what it "is" is "Variable X" which must be introduced into mathematical models of the universe, otherwise the universe "Don't make no sense it'all!"

I'm not a religious person, but I'm also not an atheist. It seems to me that it is unwise to believe that there is no such thing as an entity that is beyond our comprehension given that the universe itself (or "~95% of it" anyway) is in fact beyond our comprehension at this point. That said, I have my own theory on it:

Dark Matter/Gravity and Dark Energy are simply the Flying Spaghetti Monster trolling someone in the universe (maybe even us, though we may be the least consequential of sentient beings in all the enormous quantity of galaxies).