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Cosmic Antimatter Excess Confirmed

Posted by Soulskill on from the good-news-for-warp-core-engineers dept.

sciencehabit writes "In 2008, the Italian satellite PAMELA picked up an unusual signal: a spike in antimatter particles whizzing through space. The discovery, controversial at the time, hinted that physicists might be coming close to detecting dark matter, an enigmatic substance thought to account for 85% of the matter in the universe. Now, new data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope confirm the spike (abstract)."

10 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Just the emissions of an alien real estate agent.. by ibsteve2u · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...zipping by to see if we've eliminated ourselves yet.

    --
    Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
  2. What I am afraid of by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 2, Funny

    What I am afraid of, if anyone ever cared... ;)

    What I am afraid of is that some people will use this as evidence of otherworldly forces (any Slashdot reader), supreme beings (any Slashdot reader), Batman (a DC comic), demons (a variety of delusions), Thor (The Norse God), Bogeyman (an American tell tale), Akhenaten's Ra (Akhenaten the monotheistic precursor to the Abrahamitic monotheistic "Yahweh"), Santa Claus (The Coca Cola version of a Norse tradtion), Green Lantern (a DC superhero), Sherlock Holmes (a Doyle detective), King Kong (a Hollywood movie), or whatever has sprung out of man's mind.

    Dark Matter. Ok, calm down, we won't bite.

  3. Why are we discussing this? by gringer · · Score: 5, Funny

    It doesn't matter

    --
    Ask me about repetitive DNA
    1. Re:Why are we discussing this? by migla · · Score: 5, Funny

      >It doesn't matter

      What's the matter with you? As a matter of fact, it does. One semantically related question is which of the two mats is more mat than the other - which one is matter? Probably the person who lays mats for a living, the matter, could answer that.

      --
      Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
    2. Re:Why are we discussing this? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

      woooosh

      Well, dark matter *is* hard to detect.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Re:Dark matter or antimatter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The answer is in the second paragraph of the article.

    Well, don't keep us hanging in suspense here! What does the second paragraph of the article say?!?

  5. Re:Dark matter or antimatter? by mattie_p · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm really confused. Dark matter is made out of spikes? Do they stab at thee from hell's heart or something?

  6. Re:Dark matter or antimatter? by rossdee · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Some dark matter candidates are, according to theory, their own anti-particle"

    In related news, Herman Cain is his own worst enemy.

  7. Re:Anti-matter vs. dark matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Interestingly enough, we could all be made up of antimatter. If after the Big Bang, the amount of anitmatter was greater than matter, we be made (assuming me happened to exist) out of anitmatter, but call the anitmatter "normal matter", and call the real matter "anitmatter".

    Yeah! And how come we call them fingers if we never see them fing?

  8. Re:Dark matter or antimatter? by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why is this modded +4 informative?

    Because it saved millions of slashdotters from having to read TFA.

    --
    No sig today...