Text Box: Theorists aren't yet ready to revise equations on their cluttered whiteboards, but they agree that the surveys illuminate serious flaws. We're starting from a shaky foundation," says cosmologist Carlos Frenk of the University of Durham, UK. "We don't understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form." Fellow theorist Simon White of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, concurs: "The simple recipes in published models do not reproduce the star formation we see. Theorists are now having to grow up." ... According to prevailing theories of galaxy assembly, galaxies so massive could not have assembled that early, [Roberto Abraham of the University of Toronto] says: " If you look far enough away, the ellipticals should just evaporate. There's just no way around it." Surveys Scour the Cosmic Deep, Robert Irion, Science 303, 1750-1752 (2004)
Text Box: ...we know that the universe must also contain what is called dark matter, which we cannot observe directly. One piece of evidence for this dark matter comes from spiral galaxies. These are enormous pancake-shaped collections of stars and gas. We observe that they are rotating about their centres, but the rate of rotation is sufficiently high that they would fly apart if they contained only the stars and gas that we observe. There must be some unseen form of matter whose gravitational attraction is great enough to hold the galaxies together as they rotate. Another piece of evidence for dark matter comes from clusters of galaxies. We observe that galaxies are not uniformly distributed throughout space; they are gathered together in clusters that range from a few galaxies to millions. Presumably, these clusters are formed because the galaxies attract each other into groups. However, we can measure the speeds at which individual galaxies are moving in these clusters. We find they are so high that the clusters would fly apart unless they were held together by gravitational attraction. The mass required is considerably greater than the masses of all the galaxies. This is the case even if we take the galaxies to have the masses required to hold themselves together as they rotate. It follows, therefore, that there must be extra dark matter present in clusters of galaxies outside the galaxies that we see. Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, Bantam Books, UK, 1994; pp 133-134
Text Box: OR ARE WE BEING FOOLED? The basic evidence for dark matter is that the gas and stars around galaxies move surprisingly fast. This outlying material would be unbound, and would fly out from the galaxy, if it were feeling only the gravity of the galaxy we see. In drawing such inferences, we use our standard theory of gravity, which, in this context, reduces to Newton’s inverse square law. This law has been directly tested only within our Solar System; it is plainly a leap of faith to apply it on scales a hundred million times larger. ...Could a different ‘long-range’ law of gravity obviate the need for extra ‘dark’ matter? Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal), Before the Beginning Our universe and others, Simon & Schuster, UK, 1997; p 118
Text Box: Dark matter has just become a shade darker. At the APS meeting, physicists from the Minnesota-based Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) reported that the first results from the most sensitive dark-matter detector ever built had failed to reveal the invisible particles that theorists believe make up most of the mass in the universe. The finding nails shut the coffin on a controversial claim to have spotted dark matter, but if the particles continue to be no-shows, that would spell trouble for scientists' understanding of our universe. Almost all astrophysicists are certain that dark matter exists. Several lines of evidence suggest that about 85% of the universe's mass is invisible. Stranger still, the observations imply that this mass is not the ordinary matter that makes up stars and planets and people. It must be made of an entirely different type of particle. ... Once Again, Dark Matter Eludes A Supersensitive Trap, Charles Seife, Science 304, 950 (2004)
Text Box: The rich cluster Abell 520 (z=0.201) exhibits truly extreme and puzzling multi-wavelength characteristics. It may best be described as a "cosmic train wreck."... However, the most striking feature is a massive dark core... The core coincides with the central X-ray emission peak, but is largely devoid of galaxies. ...a mass peak without galaxies cannot be easily explained within the current collisionless dark matter paradigm. . A Dark Core in Abell 520, A Mahdavi et al.; accepted for the Astrophysical Journal; see arXiv:0706.3048v1 (2007)
Text Box: And so continues the controversy of galaxies and clusters; but not for much longer...
Text Box: Astronomers have taken their closest look at the mysterious center of our galaxy – and uncovered a further mystery. ... "It’s an interesting result," Cambridge University astronomer Martin Rees says of the map, ...[Rees] adds that "the jetlike shape inferred in the new observations suggests that the emission may come mainly from an outflow" – a conclusion that runs counter to many models of the radio source’s structure. Probing the Milky Way’s Black Heart, Govert Schilling, Science 282, 211 (1998)
Text Box: For twenty years astronomers have wondered what is responsible for the X-ray emission from the centre of our Galaxy. New data from the sharpest X-ray eye around – the Chandra observatory – reveal all. ... The Milky Way is some 80,000 light years across and contains more than a hundred billion stars. Clouds of dust prevent optical astronomers from seeing the Galactic Centre, but infrared, radio and X-rays wavelengths are largely unaffected. Indeed infrared observations have revealed that several million stars are located within a light year of the centre. Within this central region is a strong radio source that is thought to be a supermassive black hole marking the true heart of our Galaxy. ... X-rays reveal the Galaxy's centre, Andreas Eckart (University of Cologne, Germany), Nature 415, 128-129 (2002)
          Go to Part 2 of 3
THE UNIFICATION OF PHYSICS ILLUSTRATIONS
A Synopsis The Cosmos The Spin
ADDENDA The Cosmological Redshift The Neutrino
Two-Slit Tests The Galaxy Nuclear Reactions
NASA Tests Gravity The Sun
KamLAND Test Anti-Gravity The Pulsar