Astronomers Make Important Dark Matter Discovery

saudadelinux writes "To quote a press release on NASA's site, astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered 'how dark and normal matter have been forced apart in an extraordinarily energetic collision.' There will be a briefing at noon, August 21 ET, on this discovery, with streaming media provided by NASA, and some details of the research posted on Harvard's Chandra site just beforehand."

Nothing to see, move along

[dreamchaser]

How about waiting for the 21st and THEN posting a story. There is literally nothing of substance yet. Oh wait, this is Slashdot. We'll just have it posted again in two days, then on the 21st, then on the 25th, etc.

Re:Nothing to see, move along

[thePig]

How is parent offtopic?
There is no data, other than what is given in the summary.
If there is no information, why would one want to post the same in /., which is essentially a news discussion/b site.

The only discussion that can happen on this would be pure guessworks, and maybe some funny comments.

Mods, mark parent insightful, not offtopic.

Re:Question.

[susano_otter]

It's a blanket term used for stuff in the universe we think is there but haven't seen because we can not detect it's presence.

So... Scientists can't explain how the universe works, without appealing to a mysterious phenomenon they can't observe and whose nature they cannot describe except in terms of its supposed secondary effects?

And this is different from believing in God... how, exactly?

NOOooo...!!!

[The_REAL_DZA]

Someone's giving us ADVANCE NOTICE on Slashdot and you're COMPLAINING?!?!?!
 
I can't count how many times I've read something on Slashdot about something cool that's already happened, just barely, and said "Once again, information I could have put to much better use YESTERDAY!!!
 
Zonk, pay no attention to the criticism; I for one WELCOME some in-advance info (might even vote for it for "overlord"...)

Re:Question.

[Mike Peel]

"And this is different from believing in God... how, exactly?"

We look for explanations of what's going on, not just saying "it's God. Don't go there." Think of dark matter as a placeholder, not the end product. Over time, we should find a reasonable explanation of what's causing the discrepancy, at which point it will just become part of the "normal" physics.

Not at all

[Moraelin]

It's never been about how many planets are enough, and it's not just about Pluto. It's about how you define a planet.

It's, in a nutshell, about science: attempting to actually classify and understand the universe. Just proclaiming "ok, I hereby do dub Pluto a planet" is ok for everyday life, but a bit too vague for science. It's like you can talk generically about "radiation" in casual conversation or in super-hero comics, but to a scientist that's uselessly vague. A scientist will be more interested in what _kind_ of radiation (i.e., the exact particle), at what energies, etc.

The same happens in astrophysics. You can't just say "ooh, that's a pretty star", because that doesn't give you much to work with. Is it a planet? An asteroid? A comet? A star? A nova? A white dwarf? What? There are very good reasons to split hairs there, because out of such splitting hairs comes the understanding of what they are and how they work.

E.g., from the splitting of hairs as to how we classify stars came such categories as "white dwarf." In turn, that let us wonder about how big a white dwarf can be, which gave us the Chandrasekhar limit. In turn that told us that when a star goes over (actually it later it turned out that when it's just right under) that limit, it goes *KABOOM* in a spectacular Type Ia supernova. Since it happens at the exact same point, it tells us that every Type Ia supernova is exactly the same as any other one. Which in turn lets us use them to measure distances and velocities in distant galaxies. And from those came a bunch of other astrophysics stuff.

_That_ is why for science it's important to worry about such distinction. Sure, you can get through your everyday life without ever worrying about the difference between Pluto and an asteroid, or between a Type Ia and a Type 1b supernova. But for scientists, it's an entirely different situation.

The informal proclaiming which is what also doesn't scale. When you deal with a whole universe worth of stuff, you have a continuum of things, ranging from individual nuclei all the way to the super-massive black holes in the centre of galaxies. And there are trillions of trillions of them. You can't just go proclaiming for each and every single one of them if it's a planet, an asteroid, or what. You need some rule you can apply there.

Re:Question.

[geekoid]

"And this is different from believing in God... how, exactly?"

There is no secondary 'effect' that infers the existance of god.

Be that as it mey, what this means is 'we have observed and effect, now we are looking for the cause.
They seem to be making head way.

Something falling is an effect of gravity. Oberving that effect is what lead to discovering all the cool stuff about gravity.

Re:Prevailing theories

[gr8_phk]

also seem to think that stars orbiting a galactic center are supposed to obey Keplers laws... The discrepancy between the observed galactic rotation curves and the "predicted" one are then attributed to "Dark Matter" rather than someones poor understanding of basic physics.

The only dark matter is in these guys heads.

Re:Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the flow of information is reversed- scientists infer the nature of dark matter from indirect observations of secondary effects. If there wasn't evidence from these secondary effects, then these inferences would be wrong, and scientists would have to come up with a new theory. Sure, there are some scientists who have a lot invested in dark matter, just as there were many prominent scientists who built their careers on the study of luminiferous aether or phlogiston. Time, and science, proved them wrong.

Religionists, OTOH, believe in a Supreme Being a priori, and attribute whatever they cannot otherwise explain to the "mysterious ways" of the divine. The edifice of cosmology would withstand the discovery that there is no dark matter. Would religion be able to withstand the discovery that there is no God?

Re:Question.

[Red Flayer]

And this is different from believing in God... how, exactly?

Believer: There's something we can't explain. God did it.

Scientist: There's something we can't explain. Let's try to figure out what it is.

Believer scientist: There's something we can't explain. Let's try to figure out what God did.

Re:Question.

[Relic of the Future]

Because next week, we'll have a better answer.

And next year, even better.

And next century, better still.

You may now switch argument tactics to "How can you trust science if it keeps changing its answers! Religion has been giving the same answer for thousands of years!"

Re:Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion has had very little problem withstanding the discovery that there is no god.

Re:Prevailing theories

[dreamchaser]

It *is* possible that future advances in astrophysics and cosmology will nullify the dark matter argument. It's just as likely that there *is* some sort of mass carrying matter out that that we have yet to identify. Either way it just shows how much we have left to learn.

I love this place

[tyler23]

Why? Thanks for asking! I'll tell you.

Because, no matter how many people post pronouncements definitively proclaiming that they, as expert perl programmers or css jockeys or what-have-you, know *quite certainly* that the term "dark matter" is just meaningless mumbo-jumbo, demonstating their amazing mental superiority over the cretinous astrophysics community and its running-dog lackeys in the Mainstream Science Media, the emergent wisdom of the oft-maligned /. readership nonetheless mods the few informative posts up high enough that I can see them and therefore actually learn something interesting.

So thanks to drxray, and thanks to riptalon, and thanks to the readers who modded them up into my view.

Re:NOOooo...!!!

[CarnivorousCoder]

"I can't count how many times I've read something on Slashdot about something cool that's already happened, just barely, and said "Once again, information I could have put to much better use YESTERDAY!!!"

You're right! I can put the knowledge of the announcement of a dark matter phenomenon to much better use today than if I wait for the actual details. Ok, the details won't really help me either once they're announced. :-)

Re:Question.

[evilviper]

whereas when you seperate a Christian from God you get a rational thinking being.

Not at all. Irrational people will continue to believe what they always have, and continue to be irrational, whether or not religon is involed. It just gets popularly scapgoated, by people who have some ax to grind in the first place.