Dark Matter Coming to Light

Dark matter once just a theoretical substance thought to hold the universe together is now starting to show its self to be real. It is believed to be made up of subatomic particles that cannot interact with normal matter, except through gravity. It is needed in cosmology to help galaxies form and keep them spinning at the rate we observe.

Astronomers studying the way light bends as it travels across the universe say they have found large amounts of web-like strands of what can only be described as dark matter.

Dark matter cannot be detected directly but it is thought to make up up to 90% of the universe and is believed to act as the glue that holds it all together.

However even with this discovery it is still as elusive as ever and what we thought we knew about it is starting to crumble.

A recent study has shown that what we thought we knew about the properties of dark matter may not be true.

It was once thought that we may have found dark matter in the form of WIMP's (weakly interacting massive particles). These particles have a mass of about 100 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) which is around 100 times that of a proton. The reason scientists thought these were the elusive particles, was that if like they thought WIMP's interact by the weak force, then predictions made by physicists about the amount of this matter at the time just after the big bang matched the mount of dark matter astronomers thought was needed to form the galaxies.

Now with underground experiments like DAMA (see graph above for some of the results) and XENON100 all coming up with different answers things seem to be getting a little confusing. However the one thing they seem to agree on is that dark matter may only weigh 10 Gev.

So it looks like dark matter is to remain elusive just for now. But we are learning more about it every day.

What if Dark Matter is the echo of a Parallel Universe that exists alongside our own?

What if Dark Matter is a Dark Universe?

It is the theory that we live in just one of many universes that coexist

"The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James. The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes."

Quote from Wikipedia

These other Universes although the theory says they exist, they are invisible to us. Things could also be quite different in each of these Parallel Universes.

A Multiverse is needed to explain some aspects of Quantum Mechanics. This is known as the Many Worlds Interpretation. One of the most famous interpretations of this is Schrödinger's cat the thought experiment or paradox devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. In this thought experiment Schrödinger postulated that if you place a cat in a box with a flask of poison, and a radioactive source and you have no access to it you do not know if the cat is dead of alive. His idea was that the cat is dead and alive at the same time. In one universe the flask of poison stays intact and the cat survives but in another the flask breaks and the cat is killed.

Each of these ideas could help prove the other.

Dark matter interacts gravitationally with nearby objects and objects in a Parallel Universe should also have gravitational effects on nearby objects.

There has been lots of speculation in recent years about Planet X. There is no physical evidence of its presence in our Solar System, but what if that is because it is a Dark Matter Planet?

Is it possible that dark matter is lots of tiny black holes that we cannot see?

Physicist Mike Hawkins believes that Dark Matter is actually made up of Black Holes that were created just after the Big Bang.^*

^{*Issue 2 NewScientist Collection}

If this were to be true then studying Dark Matter would be very hard indeed. Not only would we need to locate it we would then need a probe that could withstand the gravitational effects of a Black Hole. This may not be to bad if they are only small but the effects of the gravitational pull on time would cause problems with measurements and even small fluctuations would cause use to get inaccurate data readings.

New research suggests that the God Particle or Higgs Boson could be what kick started the universe. If this is the case then could the abundant amount of Dark Energy during the early stages of the universe have been given off by the Higgs Boson?