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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.
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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.
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Or that dark matter actually exists. I've never seen any definitive scientific evidence of the existence of it. Dark matter just seems to be that stuff we use to answer anything we don't quite understand. Big Bang? Dark matter. Quantum physics? Dark matter. Extinction of the dinosaurs? Dark matter. Why is yo mamma so fat? Dark matter.
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
Just remember, dark matter is for explaining why very big things don't fly apart, and dark energy is for explaining why even bigger things do.
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
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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"
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.
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Sure, all you have to do is make numerically accurate predictions of future observations, how hard can that be? Or failing that, just be a String Theorist ...
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...
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It would seem to follow that dark matter would tend to naturally form some type of structure. Normal matter certainly forms rather consistent shapes on many different scales. What shapes would dark matter favor if it only interacts gravitationally? Wouldn't it form either a dense ball at the bottom of our galactic gravity well, or flatten into a disc with the rest of the matter in our galaxy? I don't think I've ever read any real theories on it.
...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.
"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."
when a string bends in the 4th dimension it creates the effects of dark matter.
. . . but only if there is someone there in the 4th dimension to hear it.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
In all fairness to mythosaz, he called it a "garden gnome," not a "theoretical garden gnome."
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. ;-)
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