Slashdot Mirror
Galaxies Floating on a Dark Matter Stream
Darkman, Walkin Dude writes "A team in Switzerland has discovered that most of the small satellite galaxies around the Milky Way's near-twin, Andromeda, are lined up in a single plane that slices through Andromeda's spiral disc. Using images from the Hubble space telescope, soon to be decommissioned, the researchers found that 9 of the 14 of Andromeda's satellites lay on a relatively narrow plane bisecting Andromeda. From the article: 'The team believes the plane could have formed in several ways. In one scenario, the galaxies may have fallen towards Andromeda along an invisible filament of dark matter. Computer simulations show these filaments can form a cosmic web along which galaxies flow.'"
your article link is almost a year old
I even noted that in my post, to pre-emptively head off any nitpicking. Looking at the page you link to, I see no concrete plans. I see "if", I see "possibility", I see "could", and I see "might". Nothing that says, yes, we will repair Hubble in the mission scheduled for such and such a date. I'm all for a continuance of Hubble service; I just don't see it happening.
O'Keefe has been gone from NASA for nine months now
Yup, I should have said "said", not says. Mea culpa for the typo.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
one paper was written, and it has (as far as i know) been proven to be correct. saying that dark matter has been disproved because of just one paper is foolish. scientific understanding is based on replication of results. you should wait until they are replicated. this is the problem with the media they lean on institutions to releases there informations before they are ready.
The current consensus is that the paper is fundamentally flawed, and that when done correctly non-linearities from GR cannot explain the flat rotation curves of spiral galaxies (not to mention the vast amounts of other evidence for dark matter including hot gas in galaxy clusters, fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, strong lensing arcs in clusters, weak gravitational lensing by galaxies, the distribution of galaxies on large scales, etc).
Unfortunately, the general public only hears about the initial press release, not the work of many other scientists in debunking those results.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
So we have two theories:
a) dark matter filaments (modeled on a computer no less). Matter we cannot see; who's existence is contentious, etc.
b) the remnants of a cannibalized galaxy. Solid evidence of this principle abundantly available.
Why leap to the more complicated and, arguably esoteric, explanation?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
"It also amazes me how much Slashdot is against the dark matter model. Why is that?"
Selection bias.
Those with an axe to grind shout the loudest and post the most often. The silent majority just keep scrolling.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso