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90% of the Universe Found Hiding In Plain View
The Bad Astronomer writes "As much as 90% of previously hidden galaxies in the distant Universe have been found by astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Previous surveys had looked for distant (10 billion light years away) galaxies by searching in a wavelength of ultraviolet light emitted by hydrogen atoms — distant young galaxies should be blasting out this light, but very few were detected. The problem is that the ultraviolet light never gets out of the galaxies, so we never see them. In this new study, astronomers searched a different wavelength emitted by hydrogen, and voila, ten times as many galaxies could be seen, meaning 90% of them had been missed before."
90% of the Universe was discovered by thinking differently? Steve Jobs just felt a tingle somewhere.
This should stand as a very significant step forward. Hopefully, they can use technology derived from this to make it easier to study planets orbiting distant stars. Hello ET!
I wear IR glasses so I'm really getting a kick out of these replies.
Anyone got any idea how this impacts our estimates of dark matter?
Does dark matter disappear or do we still need some hiding to explain things?
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If we only saw 10% of them before, how do we know we're seeing all of them this time?
...and this isn't the conclusion that I immediately jumped to - the discovery of dark matter. It's merely the discovery of the visible matter that they though should always be there.
Does this account for any missing mass and/or dark matter?
FTFA: "...this has nothing to do with dark matter."
Scientists on earth were said to be embarrassed by overlooking what had been there all along, and promised to never again take what they have for granted.
"It's like some crappy teen drama, and we just had to wait for the prom scene to realize how beautiful our soft-spoken nerdy friend is."
90% of the universe could not be reached for comment, as it decided itself too good for its unappreciative inattentive "friends" and went to the football players' afterparty.
Merely 90% of the Visible Universe that we couldn't see before.
The Visible Universe probably constitutes a very small (perhaps even infinitesimally small) fraction of the actual physical Universe. The rest will, according to Relativity, always be hidden.
Azural - instrumentals
From TFA: "I'll note: this has nothing to do with dark matter. As it happens, 90% of the matter in the Universe is in a form that emits no light, but affects other matter through gravity. We know it exists, and you can find out why here. We know it exists locally, in nearby galaxies and clusters of galaxies, too. This new result doesn't affect that, since the now un-hidden galaxies are very far away, like many billions of light years away. They can't possibly affect nearby galaxies, so they don't account for dark matter."
More in-depth quote.
"I’ll note: this has nothing to do with dark matter. As it happens, 90% of the matter in the Universe is in a form that emits no light, but affects other matter through gravity. We know it exists, and you can find out why here. We know it exists locally, in nearby galaxies and clusters of galaxies, too. This new result doesn’t affect that, since the now un-hidden galaxies are very far away, like many billions of light years away. They can’t possibly affect nearby galaxies, so they don’t account for dark matter."
And AFTER reading the article...
I'll note: this has nothing to do with dark matter. As it happens, 90% of the matter in the Universe is in a form that emits no light, but affects other matter through gravity. We know it exists, and you can find out why here. We know it exists locally, in nearby galaxies and clusters of galaxies, too. This new result doesn't affect that, since the now un-hidden galaxies are very far away, like many billions of light years away. They can't possibly affect nearby galaxies, so they don't account for dark matter.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
People are far too enamored with dark matter. It is extremely frustrating having to place everything in the context of dark matter (often with only the most tenuous connection) when trying to explain interesting observations to the general public. The author of this article, thankfully, made it clear at the top of the article that it was NOT related to dark matter and went on to explain the observation.
No. RTFA.
The "Very Large Telescope?" Come on. We can do better than that. I suggest "Really Big Round Glass Thing for Seeing Further."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Not really... there are problems at the galactic scale - when observing galaxies, the gravitational pull is just too high to be explained by normal matter alone (assuming everything else we know is mostly correct).
This has absolutely nothing do to with dark matter. So, yes it is a coincidence. And an approximation.
They're improving their technique for observing distant galaxies. Which doesn't in any way invalidate observations of (astronomically) very close galaxies. Which is what we base the existence of dark matter on.
Azural - instrumentals
...the SETI people will announce the discovery that numerous alien civilizations have been busily communicating back and forth using optical links operating in the UV region.
Have gnu, will travel.
The missing mass is comprised of all the socks that have slipped through the spacetime continuum when you put them in the washing machine. They emit no radiation, but exert gravity. It's especially grave when you can't find a matching pair.
Free Martian Whores!
Actually, it is just a coincidence. This has nothing to do with dark matter or dark energy.
This is an observation of distant galaxies. The theory of dark matter comes from observations much closer to home, within this galaxy. It's designed to explain why the galaxy doesn't fall apart; it has too little matter for gravity to do it on its own.
Since then, other independent observations have confirmed that galaxies have more matter than we can see.
Dark energy is also completely different. It comes from the observation that the far-away galaxies appear to be accelerating. What they're observing here is mass, not motion. (Yeah, same thing, but only at really high speeds, and this isn't that, either.)
They're finding a lot more galaxies, which is great, but it doesn't in and of itself radically change anything about how we view the fundamental theories of physics.
I found one sitting on my sofa when I got home last night, eating Cheetos and watching Oprah. Damn thing was in my spot, too!
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Moon Glasses, Moon screen, anyone, cheap!
The socks don't escape through the washer. They escape through the dryer's lint trap. Eventually, after you've captured at least one socks-worth of lint, a sock somewhere in the world has to go "poof". (Note that it's not necessarily your sock, or your lint trap. It's a conservation-of-mass/quantum-lint-mechanics kind of thing.)
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
who shutdown the galaxie force fled?
WOW If building a VLT expands the known Universe tenfold, imagine what they could do with a BFT (Big Fucking Telescope).
I thought most of the missing mass of the Universe was tied up in the packing peanuts that are used in shipping the equipment scientists use to search for the missing mass in the universe.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Should have stayed single.
That's why I never clean my lint trap. If I don't look, then my socks don't disappear!
"Hidden in plain view"? So what they are saying is that the universe exhibits the same behavior as my car keys.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The last time I called the thing on my couch a galaxy, she called me a gaseous nebula.
Since we just got a 10 fold increase in galaxies.
I think that moves us from 0.006 to 0.06, (plus one obviously)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Because estimates of the density of galaxies in the universe have been based on the volume that is closer to us and therefore relatively more visible, and did not suffer from the problem described. The assumption had been that the universe far away is, in a general manner, similar to the universe nearby, on the usual principle that there is nothing special about the place that we are. When the density of remote (and very early) galaxies fell off, it was assumed to be more likely to be an observational artefact than a genuine falling off. Which is what the article says has now been proved to be the case. Estimates of the number of galaxies were based on the bits we can see easily, not the bits we can hardly see.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Actually, they called it the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelmingly_Large_Telescope. Unfortunately, it seems to have shrunk recently.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
The general rule: Don't feed the trolls
Scientists can't see the universe through the galaxies.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If a lint trap fills up in the forest, and there is no one there to clean it out, does a sock turn into dark matter?
SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
So.... once we see the remaining 10% we will have reached the "end" of the universe?
Hope is the currency of fools
... is the same figure used to justify the initial claims for dark matter. Several initial sources claimed that there had to be abundant non-baryonic matter making up much of the universe, as otherwise, there would have to be about ten times as much normal matter as we were observing, and that, of course was absurd. So quite possibly this is so long to dark matter! Next question is, is there still any reason to postulate dark energy with the new values for average density and so on this will produce? Don't say goodbye to dark energy just yet, but expect some significant revisions.
Since only 10% of the universe is made up of baryons, that would make the other 90% bosons. Coincidence with the dark matter postings here?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I'm guessing that this telescope in Chile only looks at the southern part of the sky. Does this mean that 90% of the universe is not visible to northern hemisphere telescopes?
No, I didn't RTFA, this is Slasdot after all.
The missing mass is comprised of all the socks that have slipped through the spacetime continuum
True. But one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics right now, just after the prevalence of matter over antimatter, is why it's always the left sock.
Some say the two are related.
The enemies of Democracy are
[quote]Which doesn't in any way invalidate observations of (astronomically) very close galaxies. Which is what we base the existence of dark matter on.[/quote]
Haven't heard that before, but I bet you're right. It's similar to the way programmes and media which try to explain quantum mechanics generally fail to even mention the "hidden variables" theory, and how that couldn't explain the theory.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Hogwash.
The lint that collects in your dryer is not made up of sock-matter. Dryer lint is mass created via the conversion of static electricity that accumulates while your dryer is running. If it weren't for the clever device to capture this energy and turn it into lint, running your dryer would cause an electrical discharge that makes a lightning bolt seem like a bee sting -- remember, E = mc^2.
The concundrum of missing socks remains unsolved, but the leading theory is that dark-matter socks spontaneously come into existence in your dryer, then meet your regular-matter socks, and puff out of existence with a corresponding release of a preposterous amount of energy (this, of course, is the source of energy that is converted into dryer-lint).
This theory is under fire, though, as a controlled study at the Institute for Laundering Science determined that socks sometimes disappear in the washer, not just the dryer -- explanation for what happens to the energy released in the dark/normal sock in the ashing cycle has not yet been determined.
Note also that this is why we wear dark socks to bed -- if we were to put them in the hamper with regular socks, the dark socks might come into contact with our light socks and explode.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The first argument for dark matter was based on the cosmological constant, as a property of the whole universe. Unless these galaxies are so far away they are outside the universe and don't contribute to whether the whole universe is gravitationally open or closed, they have just invalidated that argument, period. Localised observations show something about non-baryonic matter, but the arguments based on the Hubble constant and universal closure are behind much of our even looking for this stuff. The article seems to be pretending that dark matter was theorized based on localized observations, when almost everybody who jumped on the bandwagon was attracted to the theory because of its implications for the origin problem. Like it or not, this does prove that initial estimates for the quantities of dark matter simply have to be wrong as well, or alternately SOMEONE DESERVES A NOBEL FOR PROVING THE UNIVERSE IS CLOSED. I don't see any proposal to award a Nobel here, do you?
By the way, I was third poster to this thread, after two people basically shouting FRIST PSOT! If anyone wants to mod me wrong, fine, but redundant is simply cowardly and a gross abuse of the system.
Who is John Cabal?
The missing mass is comprised of all the socks that have slipped through the spacetime continuum when you put them in the washing machine. They emit no radiation, but exert gravity. It's especially grave when you can't find a matching pair.
I've always held to the 'Sock Fairy' theory. It explains both the missing sock, and how the nickle that you hear bouncing around in the dryer got there.
No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue.
Shining some light on dark matter.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
But "Really Big Round Glass Thing for Seeing Further" would be abbreviated RBRGTSF which I can't even pronounce let alone remember and "Very Large Telescope" is just VLT.
You should have gotten that it was all visible light, and for galaxies they knew had to be there, from just the summary.
Dark matter isn't dark because they haven't seen it, dark matter is dark because it can't be seen. It's invisible, and doesn't interact with the visible universe except via gravity.
We already know there is a lot more to the observable universe that we just haven't seen yet, we can actually predict pretty accurately how much there is left to find. What we have left to find in the far reaches of the universe only accounts for about 10% of the matter (or at least, something that behaves exactly like matter anyway) in the universe. The rest is hidden from us, and is obviously not any kind of matter we've ever encountered.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
You've confused dark socks with anti-socks. Your theory fails.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Does dark matter disappear or do we still need some hiding to explain things?
Unless all those galaxies really far away explain how our galaxy holds itself together at the speeds its stars rotate, then no, we still need dark matter or some alternative theory like MOND.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Furthermore, they already knew they were only seeing a small slice of the observable universe, they just hadn't figured out why. They were looking for a UV signature of hydrogen, and someone figured maybe the UV signature wasn't escaping the old galaxies. They switched to another hydrogen wavelength and voila! Galaxies galore.
They already knew they were there, they just hadn't actually seen them yet.
Another way of looking at it, is that they were only able to see 1/100'th of the universe before, now they can see 1/10'th of the universe.
As you said, the figures for dark matter come from missing matter within nearby galaxies well within range of our telescopes, not from a number of missing galaxies.
Because of this, if this were a mass discovery of hitherto unknown galaxies, the figure for dark matter would simply jump 10x as well. Either way it doesn't change the ratio, because the ratio wasn't derived from the total mass in the universe.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Unless these galaxies are so far away they are outside the universe and don't contribute to whether the whole universe is gravitationally open or closed, they have just invalidated that argument, period.
You don't understand the most basic aspects of this situation, period. These galaxies were already believed to exist, but were not seen. Estimates of the mass of the universe are not based simply on counting galaxies we've found in telescopes. The estimate for the total mass of the universe does not increase every time Hubble takes a Deep Field picture and astronomers count up the galaxies. So finding these galaxies that we already expected to be there does not change the argument for dark matter one iota.
By the way, I was third poster to this thread, after two people basically shouting FRIST PSOT! If anyone wants to mod me wrong, fine, but redundant is simply cowardly and a gross abuse of the system.
That may have been true when you clicked the reply button, but by the time you posted you were about the 5th top-level post to ask if this disproves dark matter. It may seem unfair since you did write up more than just "I don't believe in dark matter and am now proven right", but it's not really an abuse.
The enemies of Democracy are
weren't people wondering where 90% of the Universe's mass went? So they started into 'dark matter' and other voodoo stuff. Now that there's been a, what, 10-fold increase in galaxies, and I assume galaxies are a bit heavy (hey, I'm not against fat galaxies, they're just massively gifted), does that answer the 'mass of the Universe' question, or is there more stuff missing still?
The dark matter is missing mass inside the galaxies. Obviously additional galaxies cannot solve the problem.
Dark energy pushes things apart. No amount of matter (whether normal or dark) can give you that, because gravity always pulls things together.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
That's nice.
Anyone seen my glasses?...
Having driven across Texas from Texarkana to El Paso several times, I knew it was big, but I never imagined Plainview was that large. Still, I've found plenty of things in Plainview before.
They already knew they were there, they just hadn't actually seen them yet.
Another way of looking at it, is that they were only able to see 1/100'th of the universe before, now they can see 1/10'th of the universe.
Exactly.
It's as if by looking at the 1/100th of the universe we could see, we calculated a rough density of the universe. You then extrapolate based on the principle that our section of the universe isn't special, and you thus expect to find lots of galaxies out there.
The enemies of Democracy are
...or they phrased it the wrong way.
90% of the known universe was hidden in plain sight, maybe.
Given the nature of the universe, I seriously doubt we'll see it all. Even then, it's hardly "discovered" by looking at it all from this little speck of dust.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
It's especially grave when you can't find a matching pair.
This is known as broken symmetry.
Like hide and seek, they just had to pretend to give up the search, and the galaxies got bored and came in for some lemonade, yes?
But I'm wondering if this finding contradicts a few days ago announcement that the movement of galactic clusters is due to mass outside our universe. If our universe now has 90% more mass than it did, now maybe these flows make more sense. At least there's nothing in the article saying "The soon to be announced finding of 9 times the currently known amount of matter does not affect this report."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100322-dark-flow-matter-outside-universe-multiverse/
It is clear from your inane ramblings that you always en-sock your RIGHT foot first.
I, on the other hand, always en-sock my LEFT foot first. Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to deduce that it's my right socks that always go missing ...
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
I have a similar problem.. but it only applies to dark socks. No matter how frequently I buy new black socks and how INfrequently I buy new white socks, I always end up with "not enough dark socks."
For example, right now I am down to exactly 4 pairs of black socks and about 15-20 pairs of white socks - right after I do my laundry. And I don't even remember the last time I bought white socks.
Maybe black socks mature into white socks? (and XKCD suggested that socks may be the larval stage of wire coat hangers...)
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
You're just putting the left sock on your right foot.
Today I'm wearing two right socks because I lost the last of my left socks in the wash the other day.
The enemies of Democracy are
If this is the solution to the dark matter question, then all those astronomers and astrophysicists have been disturbingly myopic.
You are absolutely 100% correct.
However, given that the article stated at the very top that this has nothing to do with dark matter, your premise dissolves to:
Given that astronomers and astrophysicists are not myopic, this is obviously not the solution to dark matter.
Given that it was THEM that you found ass-hatted when they are apparently the reasonable ones and given that you were driven to leave for Comp Sci indicates two things about your move.
It was:
1. Astronomy's gain
2. Comp Sci's loss
It's one thing to follow /. tradition and not RTFA. But in the /. tradition of your posting this tripe long after mod points for -1, Redundant have been exhausted, might I point out that there's still plenty of room left in the liberal arts?
it is precisely this kind of ass-hatted, onanistic speculation
You mean the kind you engaged in when a single mouse click would have saved you that?
Can I get some fries with your opinion, to go?
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
what kind of fucking retard tattoo's FIRST POST on their own cock?!?
... wait, what?
Aw darn.
Looks like my loony science idea bin needs re-stocking.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Fries coming right up, sir!
I have been thoroughly pwned and apologize for my myopic, onanistic, speculative non-opinion.
Well, your cheerful comeback proves you're a good guy, so I guess no harm/no foul on my part - cool.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
I don't see how they can't be related. Physicists have been saying for years that their calculations indicate there is huge amounts more mass in the universe than they can find.
Well, the known mass of the universe just increased by a factor of 10. How can that be unrelated?
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
"By no means do I know what I am talking about."
"Score:3, Informative"
Never change Slashdot.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Agreed. This particular news story isn't directly relevant to the "dark matter" debate.
Mmm ... alternatively, if there's no dark matter, that'd suggest that Einstein's general theory isn't totally reliable for calculating galaxy-scale gravitational effects. In that case, there's no guarantee that our current GR calculations are correct for the lensing effects associated with the large-scale distortions that might arise when two galaxies collide, either. Gravitational shockwaves associated with forced deceleration (due to collision) aren't stopped by EM radiation pressure, and should keep moving, too.
So we still have at least two interpretations available. If we assume that Einstein's general theory is perfect, then perhaps we have to invoke something very like dark matter to explain why the predictions //appear// to fail for rotating (and colliding) galaxies. On the other hand, if we were to assume that there was no such thing as dark matter, and that Einstein's general theory was simply failing, period, then the failure in the collisional case as well as the rotating case might just mean that the theory is failing //consistently//.
Eric Baird
90% more galaxies, but are any of them worth visiting?
klingons
no more matter bailouts for the devious book-cookin' universe.
Table-ized A.I.
it's all solved now.
Table-ized A.I.
Universe is like a balloon. It is expanding at a faster rate. We won't be able to find the limit of this limitless universe. http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2236872
...'cause across the corner of the Hubble photo was a yellow banner that said:
"Now! With 90% MORE Universe!"
It is imprecise to say physicists indicate there should be much more mass in the universe. What they say is that there is mass missing in every galaxy which implies it is missing from the universe but only on a galaxy by galaxy basis. Dark matter is necessary to explain why galaxies form. In other words the "missing" matter is in each and every galaxy. Discovering more galaxies doesn't affect that issue.
When I was a physics major in the dark ages they were just beginning to notice that computer simulations based on observed stellar quantities and masses had the annoying property of never resulting in galaxies. In subsequent years it was computed that the needed mass for galaxy formation wasn't off by a little but actually by a huge factor.
Eventually some observations of gravitational lensing have provided more evidence that there was huge amounts of mass measured in this indirect fashion that was simply not seen by exhaustive charting of the observed stars.
I always thought that dark matter was a hack. "our numbers don't add up.. therefore 90% of the universe is a type of matter that has gravity but doesn't interact with the electromagnetic spectrum, or anything else, also there's none of it near earth, it's like the 90% that's far away." sounds good to me :-p
Oh thank God! The Universe won't die a cold, lonely and dark death after all. I feel better. Wait. Where is Nemesis now?
> Dark matter is necessary to explain why galaxies form.
> In other words the "missing" matter is in each and every galaxy.
> Discovering more galaxies doesn't affect that issue.
That is almost entirely incorrect.
For one, galactic formation is best explained by ripples in spacetime cause by sound waves during inflation (if you believe any of those things actually exist). Dark Matter is needed to keep them together after that, although it would of course been present and part of the initial formation.
For another, entirely different issue, Dark Matter is also required to flatten spacetime at a universal level. That is, if spacetime is as flat as it seems to be, the vast majority of the mass in the universe is not seen. There are other measurements, like baryonic oscillations and the CMB that also argue for this.
It has long been assumed that this "universal dark matter" and the "galactic dark matter" holding galaxies together are one and the same. However, this suffers from a major problem: the former requires three to ten times the mass of the later.
What's interesting about this particular study is its conclusion: we've been missing 90% of the luminosity of _deep sky objects_. That obviously has nothing to say about galactic dark matter, but it's the wrong order of magnitude anyway. On the other hand, it may have something to say about universal Dark Matter. If there's enough mass in these newly discovered galaxies then perhaps the need goes away entirely. Much more likely, however, would be that it would bring the required amount in-line with galactic formation requirements, thereby cementing the idea that there is a single source of Dark Matter that is used evenly in both cases. That would make a lot of people happy.
Maury
I guess that is what comes from relying on memories of cosmology courses taken in the 70's. Looking at recent sources it appears dark matter is now used to explain how galaxies cluster rather than how they are able to form. I can't find a reference to "universal dark matter". That wouldn't be a reference to dark energy, would it? In any case how is it that we know the Earth to be banana shaped?
Crikey! I start a major thread, get dozens of replies that are rated Interesting and/or Funny (thus providing karma boosts to just about everyone), and what do I get?
Dark stuff?, posted to 90% of the Universe Found Hiding In Plain View, has been moderated Interesting (+1).
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Dark stuff?, posted to 90% of the Universe Found Hiding In Plain View, has been moderated Redundant (-1).
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Dark stuff?, posted to 90% of the Universe Found Hiding In Plain View, has been moderated Redundant (-1).
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Sometimes life just ain't fair.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
*nickel?