Do you have time to learn about one of the great mysteries of the Universe? Edge of Knowledge is a new series starring Dr. Paul Sutter and will be released by ArsTechnica. The eight-episode miniseries will explore the mysteries of the universe, such as black holes, the future of climate change, the origins of life, and Dark Matter!
Dark Matter is one of the most enduring, frustrating, and confusing mysteries ever. Scientists are working so hard to find it. The most widely accepted theories of the Universe don't make sense without being out. It is both complicated and long. In less than 15 minutes, Dr. Sutter sums it all up. He explains why we need to track Dark Matter.
Dark Matter is a perfect place to start a series because it is beyond the edge of scientific knowledge. Scientists can calculate how massive objects behave on the largest scales thanks to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. During the 1950s and 60s, astrophysicists noticed that the gravitational behaviors they were observing did not conform to the amount of Luminous.
This part of the explanation takes the cake. He shows how scientists study Dark Matter using a simple analogy: a person standing on a ship at night. You don't know if there are mountains or jungles. This is the situation with dark matter.
There is a lot of evidence around us. He lists the lines of evidence from a copy he had on hand. The temperatures of the clusters. Light is bending around massive structures. There is a large-scale structure of the Universe. There is a microwave background. It goes on and on.
What do we know about it? We know what it isn't, which has allowed theorists to place constraints on what it might be. According to what we have learned about Dark Matter, it has three parameters: Cold, Collisionless, and Abundant. The most widely accepted model of the Universe is the Lamba Cold Dark Matter model. Dr. Sutton put it this way:
“Whatever dark matter is, it must be cold, collision-less, and abundant. We’d like to know what dark matter is made of because it can help us understand the dynamics of galaxies and the evolution of the universe. Oh, and by the way, it is by far the most common particle in the universe. So, it’d be nice to know what it’s actually made of.”
This is one of the high points of the episode, where Dr. Sutton gives an insightful yet straightforward summary of the theoretical and experimental basis. For the latter, he explains how the mass distribution of the galaxies shows how Luminous Matter alone cannot account for what we see. There is also the presence of dark matter halos, which every galaxy in the Universe appears to have.
The scale density and scale radius are different numbers for each halo, but no matter what, they all share the same shape and the shape looks like this. It tells us about the evolution of dark matter halos.
According to Dr. Sutter, the denser, centralized, ball-like structure of the forms suggest that they accumulate more particles over time. The formation of these halos is linked to the large-scale structure of the Universe. This is one of the reasons scientists are so excited about the James Webb, Nancy Grace Roman, and other missions that will observe how the Universe evolved from the beginning, it would be a chance to see this process at work!
A guest expert, an aquarium, and lots of plastic balls are included in the rundown. He said that every single theorist with time to kill has their own theory of how dark matter might work. There are black holes and sterile neutrinos.
All of the different theories predict how dark matter will behave in our universe.
These facilities are usually located underground and operate in total darkness. This way, the detectors can see the smallest releases of energy that may be caused by interaction between particles or normal matter. To do justice to this aspect, Dr. Sutter calls upon Prof. Janna Levin, the professor of physics and astronomy at the Barnard College of Columbia University.
Prof. Levin made a point about the fact that there is a lot of which are not accounted for.
“[N]eutrinos are absolutely a physical undeniable verifiable example of dark matter. They do not interact with light. They have all the properties of dark matter, but they’re not heavy enough or abundant enough to explain the extreme dominance in the energy pie. So, if you think of the energy pie of the universe, dark matter is taking up like some twenty-five percent, let’s just say roughly.
“So, I think the question is really, are there really heavy neutrinos? And that’s basically a lot of people are looking for that. They’re looking for WIMPs… that are much, much heavier than neutrinos and that don’t fit into our standard understanding of particle physics.”
There are many unresolved questions regarding the involvement of the Devil in the evolution of the Universe. This includes questions about baryogenesis and matter/anti-matter asymmetry. The birth of baryonic matter in the Universe and how matter must have exceeded anti-matter in the earlUniversese are referred to.
We know that matter is preferred over anti-matter. Is dark matter a factor in that? We don't really know, but one would hope so by the economy of explanations. If we find the dark matter, the hope is that it explains baryogenesis and where it fits into the larger scheme.
It is a big, frustrating, and complex matter. After listening to Dr. Sutter and Prof. Levin, it becomes clear why the search for it is so important to modern science. Dark matter is more than a hypothesis. It is a framework for understanding vast swaths of phenomena across the Universe, but it is not finished. The foundation is ours. We can't live in it yet. Dark matter is on the edge of knowledge because of that.
Future episodes are likely to tackle matters of equal importance and complexity.
In addition to being a Research Professor at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Dr. Sutter is also a renowned author and a regular contributor to Universe Today! If you have time after the video, check out his extensive catalog of articles, especially his most recent series that explains all the complex terminology in astronomy: Astronomy Jargon 101.
Further reading is at ArsTechnica.
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