The Search for Dark Matter and Dark Energy

mlimber writes "The New York Times Magazine has a lengthy article on dark matter and dark energy, discussing the past, present, and future. 'Astronomers now realize that dark matter probably involves matter that is nonbaryonic ["meaning that it doesn't consist of the protons and neutrons of 'normal' matter"]. And whatever it is that dark energy involves, we know it's not 'normal,' either. In that case, maybe this next round of evidence will have to be not only beyond anything we know but also beyond anything we know how to know.'"

Comments

Can dark matter just be..

[Wah]

...big black holes that have already eaten everything around them? (i.e the "edges" of the universe)

..."in-transit" energy from 100,000,000,000 stars?

...large amounts of completely non-reflective dust and asteroids?

...a side effect of over-estimating the size of the universe? (i.e. stars like our 5 billions light years away don't exist anymore)

/real questions
//just curious..

Re:Can dark matter just be..

[rasputin465]

So there are at least two completely different, totally unrelated dark matter problems.

You're right that the universal baryon density doesn't specifically constrain galactic dark matter. But Occam's Razor suggests there is only one dark matter problem. Besides, you would have to explain why galaxies would have one type of dark matter while galaxy clusters have a completely different kind (and we know intra-cluster dark matter is non baryonic). It's much easier to explain the dark matter evidence at all scales by postulating just one culprit.