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Dinosaurs Done In By... Dark Matter?
bmahersciwriter writes "Theoretical physicists propose that the Sun periodically crosses into a dense layer of dark matter sandwiching the Milky Way. The gravitational push and pull that this creates disturbs debris in the Oort cloud sending deadly comets and asteroids ricocheting around the solar system. This passage happens, their admittedly speculative model suggests, every 35 million years, which jibes somewhat with evidence on impact craters. Take it with a dino-sized grain of salt."
GO!
seriously how long until someone claims that this happens every 35 million years and the clock is ticking down to Nov 10, 2016.
I understand why they're getting a weak signal here on Earth, where most craters will have long since been erased by erosion and surface remodeling. But I'll bet we could get a much stronger signal from the Moon, particularly the far side. Do we have the ability to get dates for craters there from orbiting probes, or is that something we'd have to collect physical samples to do?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
There seems to be some rather big assumptions being made here, like the nature of dark matter.
I read the internet for the articles.
Real Reason
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Remember folks:
Dark Mater is a THEORETICAL stuff that weighs a lot or is all over the place to explain why entire solar systems don't fly out of the Galaxy as they spin.
What if there was no Dark matter and Gravity could distorts time in a way that would explain it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs
signed
Fred F.
In retrospect, I rather regret not leaping on some bizzare and obscure science topic very early on in my career. With my early knowledge of pop-science and fantasy TV, film, and comic books, I could have made big headways in modern cosmology and theoretical physics by now.
May the Maths Be with you!
obviously, the dark matter came from Uranus
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Remember folks:
Dark Mater is a THEORETICAL stuff that weighs a lot or is all over the place to explain why entire solar systems don't fly out of the Galaxy as they spin.
Yes, we know. Who said it wasn't theoretical? In case you missed the first three words of the summary: "Theoretical physicists propose..."
What if there was no Dark matter and Gravity could distorts time in a way that would explain it all.
Aaand what if gravity doesn't do that?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If you look over the past 500 billion years, the geological record shows that there is a mass extinction event roughly every 62 million years. Even though there is some give and take, on that timescale it's almost like clockwork. Since this discovery, scientists of many disciplines have been trying to figure out what could be causing it. While I admit that it could be a cosmic coincidence, if not, then somewhere a culprit is lurking. There are also lesser extinction events every 26 - 35 million years.
For more on the 62 million year problem
More on mass extinction events in general
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Those heathen dinosaurs didn't worship Jeebus hard enough and GOD smote them for their insolence.
Are these things being obsoleted? The most discussed and hot comments boxes haven't been updated in a week or two. Is the beta rollout still happening?
"To stop the terrorists."
Yesterday, a story about upskirt photos being legal in Massachusetts and today dark matter killing off the dinosaurs.
Coincidence? I think not.
You know, it's amazing the insights that a few Friday afternoon cocktails can bring.
Add in Li'l Boosie getting released from prison today, and you can't tell me the Illuminati isn't behind all this. Maybe.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sharks with lasers on their heads is so 20th century.
Why is Snark Required?
My understanding of the English language isn't complete, but I understood "theoretical physicists" to mean that the physicists themselves were only theoretical -- in much the same way that "garden gnome" is a gnome that lives in a garden.
LOL From TFA.... "Dissipative dark matter is a possible explanation, but it’s not clear that it’s explaining anything real"
I'm not a physicist but every description I've heard of dark matter more or less boils down to "we've noticed there is more gravity in areas where we don't see mass. And since only mass can generate gravity we have missing mass. We're going to call that missing mass dark matter."
Okay... fine... but that's entirely theoretical. No one has actually found dark matter... as in put it under a microscope or touched it. So... until then, lets not come up with any halfassed theories regarding it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Everything is science is "theoretical", that doesn't mean it's unlikely to be true.
Dark matter explains both galaxy rotation and the behavior of the early universe quite well. Until the CMBR data, dark matter was just one hypothesis among many for galaxy rotation, but only dark matter explained the observed pattern of mass distribution when the universe cooled enough to become transparent for the first time. And the numbers matched to a couple of significant digits, not in some hand-wavey way.
What dark matter is made of is still an open question, but it's pretty clear that about 4/5ths of the matter in the universe is dark.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Except that to do this you first assume uniform distribution of impacts wrt time...
I have found you can increase gravity locally by slamming down a 12 pack of beer. From this I can deduce that in order to stay together, the galaxies must be totally hammered...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Everybody knows that it was Nibiru.
Personally, I was gonna blame the Big Bang. If you're going to make an absurd connection, take. it. all. the. way.
...in case you missed the first three words of the summary: "Theoretical physicists propose..."
I prefer to get my physics from physicists that actually exist, thanks.
I darn well stubbed my toe on *something* when I staggered home last night, so I'm pretty sure the garden gnome is not theoretical.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Dark matter is not THEORETICAL. There is direct evidence for it. Quoting from the relevant wiki:
In other words, gravitational lensing of light waves - which is 100% direct evidence of matter - shows a region where there is matter that is clearly non-baryonic (i.e. does not interact with the electromagnetic field, a.k.a. "dark"). This is not subject to dispute. The question of what, exactly, is dark matter - is indeed still a subject of scientific research. There are, however, a number of super-symmetric theories which posit super-partners for well known particles, the most stable of which turn out to have the exact characteristics we're noting observationally. It is important to note that these theories were not tailored to account for the dark matter, but seem to fit the observational evidence quite well so far. As with all science however, theories are subject to falsification at any times as soon as new evidence comes on the scene.
I believe this is real. It's on one of those other god like astro physics levels of things, that people don't understand. Like mind control, and directed-energy weapons. People don't understand shit about the universe, how cold it is, or how fucking dangerous and volatile it is ..
I think we should ditch planet earth now and focus on building an artificial planetary system which can avoid other planets, comets, energy, and other uncontrollable systems. Immediately, as soon as we can, before we ourselves parish.
Learn about mind control and directed-energy here: http://www.oregonstatehospital...
One cloaca is as good as any other.
"So what if there was this giant swarm of space bees, and every 35 million years our solar system–"
"Wait. Wait, hold on. You're suggesting space bees killed the dinosaurs?"
"Not directly! These bees are huge. Moon-sized. And they live in the interstellar gaps between stars. I calculated that if their swarm passes through the Oort Cloud, they would get really upset and buzz around, and their gravitational forces would fling asteroids and comets into the solar system."
"How did you calculate that the Oort Cloud makes your hypothetical space bees angry?"
"Well it's a lot more plausible than your hypothetical invisible aether making the sun go wonky."
There's a flaw I see here. When the solar system was formed, chunks of stuff flew around in random directions and collided and there's X chance that one hits Earth. So something comes along and alters the trajectory/orbits of some of this stuff, also randomly. The probability that one hits Earth does not go up. You took something random and made it differently random. For this to be true, the vast majority of matter would regularly have to have magically been specifically not on a trajectory to eventually hit Earth ever. That simply isn't true.
It's not non science. Perhaps you should read "dark" as "unknown" instead. It's unknown energy, and unknown matter. It's just a place holder for something we don't yet understand. The scientists are fully aware it is something they don't understand. So they're not just making shit up.
gravitational lensing of light waves - which is 100% direct evidence of warped space
FTFY
This is not subject to dispute
It damn well is!
Rubbish.
There is considerable observational evidence for both.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Which Dinosaur? There were lots of sizes! I need to quantify this immediately or my brain will turn into dark matter! Get it? Grey matter, dark matter...Laugh or I'll turn this solar system around and we'll go right back to the dark matter.
You can dance if you want to.
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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Apart from the mention of Dark Matter, which seems to be a perennial favourite these days, this theory is not new. It was first proposed c.1986 at least.
My web domain.
Dark matter is like the UFOs of astronomy. It's only called "dark" because they don't know what it is yet! UFOs are only "unidentified" until they identify the flying object. There's no reason to think that "dark matter" is something mysterious or alien, astronomers just can't see it...because it doesn't glow!
it neither emits radiation or reflects it, so to our current tech it's mostly undetectable directly, although we can measure the effects it has on normal matter.
In all fairness to mythosaz, he called it a "garden gnome," not a "theoretical garden gnome."
I think you need to recheck your math.
500 billion divided by 62 million equals 8,064.5, so I don't understand where the 130 number is coming from.
Even if you were thinking 'million' as you typed billion, 130 still makes no sense, as 500 million divided by 62 million equals 8.
Best current estimates on the age of the universe are much smaller than 500 billion, more like 14-15 billion.
Where does the 500 billion come from?
BTW, other than the maths, you made an interesting comment. :-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Yeah, I feel 'sucker-punched' by this as well.
All of those lying, conniving scoundrals that call themselves scientists have been trying to convince me for years that the universe was only 14 1/2 billion years old.
Man, I feel old now....
Hey wait, maybe this explains the universe expanding....it's trying to catch up with the new info. Yeah, that's gotta be it. ;-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
This would explain why the room spins too... Like a galaxy!!!
Again, rubbish.
There is evidence for dark matter from many areas of astronomy. Others have listed observational evidence and provided links to details. Follow them. I am not going to do your homework for you. Simply saying that something does not exist because you do not understand it, or because you do not want it to exist, or because you have a grudge against science is magical thinking.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
It isn't obvious that what we are seeing is matter, dark or otherwise, but only that we see an effect that causes lensing as per our theoretical models and methods of observation. Maybe it's some other force field, maybe conditions are different in the part of the universe we observed -- this is far out but not so much compared to something called "dark matter."
Dude! Like, when you are hammered you can SEE it, right? The rest of the time nobody notices because they are out of sync with the universe! We are totally getting a Nobel Prize for this, but we're going to need enough booze to get the whole committee wasted so they can grasp the cosmic significance! And then enough Bloody Mary mix and vodka so they can write the proclamation (and the check) the next day...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
On the contrary. The only evidence we have is that it cannot yet be observed. Thus the moniker of being dark.
We can observe that there must be something there (from the gravitational effects) but we can't actually see it (though there's been a few hints of annihilations that might be consistent with something like a sterile neutrino). It's like looking for a black cat in a coal cellar: we might not see the cat, but we can feel the mice it has killed and (maybe) hear the meow.
If there is a sterile neutrino out there, directly observing it is going to be absurdly hard.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Once again, rubbish.
There are decades of observational evidence that support the existence of dark matter. If you have any evidence that those observations are wrong, or have been interpreted incorrectly then feel free to present that evidence. You are making an extraordinary claim, that many years of research is wrong. You now need to provide evidence to back up your claim.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
I read about this exact subject some years back, kinda late news, chum?
Reminds me of a cheesy pickup line I heard:
You remind me of my big toe, because I'm going to bang you on my couch soon.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hmm. And the SUSY model that is consistent with .... The null hypothesis
I think I will submit a story
SUSY is chopped up. Wait for it.
Article extract:
The signal is very well fit by a 31-40 GeV dark matter particle annihilating to bb_ *** with a density of 0.3 GeV/cm^3.
*** bb_ (note: that's a bottom quark and a bottom antiquark)
WIkipedia "Bottom quark":
There are many bottomonium states .... These consist of a bottom quark and its antiparticle.
Conclusion: Dark matter decays to a state of bottomonium.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.