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China Launches Dark Matter Space Probe (nature.com)
hackingbear writes: China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer Satellite Wukong, named after the fictional character Monkey King, was successfully launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province on Thursday. The probe will be in service for three years to observe the direction, energy and electric charge of high-energy particles in space in search of dark matter. Two further missions will blast off next year: the world's first quantum-communications satellite and an X-ray telescope observing in a unique energy band. Together, these missions mark a new start for space science in China which previously focused on non-science missions, says Wu Ji, director-general of the National Space Science Centre (NSSC).
How did they find enough dark matter to build a space probe? I thought that stuff was hard to find. :)
For the next few years the Chinese will be probing around Uranus looking for dark matter?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So does NASA... Goes to show how horrible imperial is
It makes up 95% of the universe actually
toughest problem is they can't tell where it is
So does NASA... Goes to show how horrible imperial is
Hmmm ... interesting: NASA criticised for sticking to imperial units
“The Shuttle and US segments of the ISS were built using the English system of measurements,” says NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma. “And much of the Ares launch vehicle and Kennedy Space Center ground systems are legacy hardware built in the English system, too.”
US law
NASA recently calculated that converting the relevant drawings, software and documentation to the “International System” of units (SI) would cost a total of $370 million – almost half the cost of a 2009 shuttle launch, which costs a total of $759 million. “We found the cost of converting to SI would exceed what we can afford,” says Hautaluoma.
“Given these budget constraints and the need for consistent units throughout the Constellation Program lifecycle to minimise risks, and to contribute to mission success, we’re revising the previous management directive to a primarily English-units-based program,” he says.
Question: What is this?
A) Assembly line for Imperial starfighters built using metric? Or ....
B) Assembly line for metric busting SR-71 built using imperial?
Answer: It's a trick question, there are no Imperial starfighters. The answer is B: an assembly line for SR-71s built using imperial.
Something to ponder on my 5km walk.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Check this link to find out where dark matter may lie in earth's neighborhood twice the distance to the moon. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/n...
It probably only makes up about a tenth of the mass locally in the disk of the Milky Way: http://m.phys.org/news/2012-06...
Your whole premise is wrong because there are methods of detecting photons that do not involve large jumps in energies, with multiple continuum methods working from the microwave region on to high energy gammas. And if you're the same guy who has been for years posting quantum is wrong because of a severe lack of understanding the variety processes photons are involved in, you should have learned about this by now as it has been pointed out by replies many times by multiple people.
It's so funny that people really believe that foreign countries are inherently evil because they are not your own. Don't you think it's more logical that their government really is trying to do what is best for their people? Sure, there are dictatorships and there are probably alot of countries that are lead for more selfish means.
Well 95 is a bit of a stretch, 95% is roughly dark matter and dark energy combined, and they think dark matter makes up about 25% total...
Well the Soviet union were the first to put a lander on the moon sooo...
China already has.
The funkiest monkey that ever popped.
Wukong (a.k.a. Goku) literally means to have an epiphany/understanding about/of the void(/er, dark matter?). The two Chinese characters used in the name are typical for naming Buddhist disciples As you may know, the Monkey King is such a disciple in the novel Journey to the West, a tome with heavy Chinese Buddhist themes.
could the stretching of spacetime cause it to look as if the galaxies are moving away from each other? That is pretty much what is happening except it doesn't so much stretch but rather all space is expanding at every location. Gravity can still overcome this though, Andromeda is for an example headed right for us.. As for dark matter/energy, that was basically how they were first theorised.. As models didn't add upp scientists figured that more mass was the only explanation and since it can't be seen it was called dark matter, at least we now know dark matter exists. Dark Energy also came about when people looked at the rate of expansion in the universe and saw that it was increasing rather than decreasing which it should've been doing according to the models at the time...
...in space. The US has tucked up their balls and walked away from the field.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
A small clarification: Superman is fictional, Monkey King is mythological, which is the same thing, but with the benefits of tradition and hindsight.
> We all know China can't be trusted...
Except for those 90% of consumer products lying everywhere in your house.
Chinese or aliens, my first thought was Cartman had better clinch-up his sphincter or his dark matter's gonna get probed...
I have a question. You know how the voyager space probes made it as far as they did and the tiny, tiny, mega super tiny force in one direction that was unknown was determined to be the equal and opposite reaction from infrared photons leaving one side of the craft? NASA noticed something that tiny and verified it with calculations. If dark matter existed, wouldn't that have had a similar pull on one of the probes? It traveled through the entire solar system and saw absolutely no gravitational interference at all from unknown mass. I'd consider that a pretty effective probe that's accidentally looking for dark matter.
How did they find enough dark matter to build a space probe? I thought that stuff was hard to find. :)
There's lots of dark matter, 85% of the universe according to the article, and it is hard to find, which is why we have to send a probe to space to look for it. In this case, they will really be collecting data on high energy cosmic rays. Some theories about dark matter suspect that in can interact with itself or with regular matter and produce cosmic rays. The chance if it doing so is very small, but there is so much of it, it hopefully happens in detectable amounts. So, what they are probably doing is collecting data on cosmic rays that can't otherwise be explained and looking for an origin in the same location as where we suspect dark matter to be.
If they think that finding and understanding dark matter is what China hopes will make them a military power greater than the US
"It's so funny that people really believe that foreign countries are inherently evil because they are not your own."
Agreed. China didn't drop atomic bombs on Japan.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
I just read an (old) article this morning about using gold and DNA to detect dark matter.
I'm not a physicist and really know nothing about the subject, but it would be interesting to know if the Chinese are attempting to detect dark matter using the aforementioned substances.
Article here.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
That's more ignorance than evilness. We'd be dropping those things all over the place if they acted like really big conventional weapons (which is what they were wanting at the time.)
The effects of radiation and fallout weren't really known back when the bombs were dropped (well I'm sure there was some scientists ranting about it but we all know how selective the government's hearing is when it comes to scientists telling them they're being stupid -- climate change anyone?)
And its those effects, not the killing horrific numbers of people (which was the whole point of course) that has earned nuclear weapons (and unfortunately, nuclear power and basically anything else with the word nuclear in it) their current stigma of being the evilest of evils.
All that said, you're point still stands -- all governments tend to be fairly similar when looking at them from a global scale, regardless of their internal policies.
In what way is carving up Falun Gong practitioners for organs good for them?
Exactly I got modded as flamebait because China can be trusted or something? They have a proven track record not to be trusted, they are destroying food chains, fisheries and natural resources "just because". They are killing their own people, help sponsor some of the worst bot nets in the world, the smog is enough to kill 3 countries, shall I go on? lol Not saying we are better but to think they are innocent is just as bad.... I don't trust them because I read up on what they are doing, and no I'm not talking about CNN or fox news.