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China's Dark Matter Probe Detects Tantalizing Signal (sciencemag.org)
hackingbear shares a report from Science Magazine: Results reported by a China-led space science mission provide a tantalizing hint -- but not firm evidence -- for dark matter. In its first 530 days of scientific observations, China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) detected 1.5 million cosmic ray electrons and positrons above a certain energy threshold. When researchers plot of the number of particles against their energy, they saw hints of an anomalous break in the curve. Now, DAMPE has confirmed that deviation. "It may be evidence of dark matter," but the break in the curve "may be from some other cosmic ray source," says astrophysicist Chang Jin, who leads the collaboration at the Chinese Academy of Science's Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing. DAMPE's life span will be extended to 5 years given the excellent conditions of this Chinese spacecraft, then it can record over 10 billion cosmic events, allowing researchers to confirm if it is indeed dark matter. Perhaps more significantly, the first observational data produced by China's first mission dedicated to astrophysics shows that the country is set to become a force in space science, says David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. China is now "making significant contributions to astrophysics and space science," he says. The DAMPE results appear online in the journal Nature.
This was one of the Gaussian Triplets known as Goa Tse. We have seen it before and believe it to be emanating from a large, nearby black hole.
I dont have access to the Nature article and the linked article doesnt mention the sigma level for the signal they see. Anyone know how significant this anomaly is?
By my calculations from the numbers in the article, it's processing around 1 million cosmic ray strikes a year.
So, how are they going to get to 10 billion in five years?
Well this is exciting. The results considerably narrows the parameter space for nearby astronomical sources that can account for the PAMELA positron anomaly. It also puts new constrains on theoretical models for proposed dark-matter candidates. Of course it is still entirely possible that all that comes out of this is the discovery of a nearby pulsar
Forget dark matter, the REAL importance of DAMPE is to give you the hookshot.
Eventually, once biologists came on board to listen, they found the source of the signals.
Farting Fish Fingered said the Guardian.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It'll turn out to be a hoax.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I read the linked article that had not much more detail than the summary, unfortunately.
But the projected count of events seems wrong. The reported data were collected over 530 days it is said. That's about 1-1/2 years, and they observed 1.5 million events, or about 1 million per year. They now want to extend the lifetime of the probe to 5 years, total. Shouldn't that be about 5 million events, give-or-take? We have a discrepancy of 3 orders of magnitude from the projected total count of 10 billion.
So, where does that projection come from, or is this a case of a reporting mistake ("billion" substituted for "million") followed by a basic fact-checking failure? British vs American English combined with incomplete search-and-replace? Something else?
I mean, it's a space probe. Up in space. It's not like you can swap out the detector for a new one with 1000-fold better capture efficiency.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Can any of their data be trusted after the doctoring of the moon photography?
. Try getting a gyroscope to show you the spinning of Earth
I've judged high school science fairs that had ones built by students. Most science museums and university physics departments have a gyroscope or a Foucault pendulum you can watch rotate throughout the day. These also tend to be built by students (or a single lecture-dem employee), as they are not hard to make and you could easily do so yourself.
As far as dark matter being some grand conspiracy to hide broken gravity, multiple alternative gravity research groups are still getting funding, still publishing papers, and still well received by the rest of the community. Conspiracy theorist love talking about how some specific idea can make you a pariah, when how you're judged by the science community is much more about the diligence of your research and a bit about just being polite/humble/tactful when discussing one's work.
Did China correct for the effect of North Korea's native unicorn population? They probably emit similar signals.
A good science fair project would be to have somebody explain why flights from Argentina to Australia don't fly over Antarctica. Whenever I ask a ball-Earther they usually insist there's a simple reason but start stuttering and gesticulating disjointedly when I ask for details.
Are you moving the goal posts because you accept how easy it is to build the gyroscope you previously said otherwise about?
And why would a flight from Sydney to Santiago or Buenos Aires go out of their way to go to Antarctica when the shortest path is further north, both with and without jets stream's help? But if you want to be a tourist and pay more for a sight seeing flight over Antarctica, they exist. Far more commonly, you can take a cruise or sailboat from Australia to South America to see Antarctica.
Turns out China excels at producing faked science.
Beware, demand verification, and even then check to make sure the "Peers" aren't the same people who wrote the paper.
Whether or not you believe the earth is round, routes taken by specific flights also involved other issues like... international treaties, safety, and orders from corporate headquarters.