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In the scenario you're describing a black hole would qualify, however IIRC there are other aspects of dark matter that black holes can't explain.
by nightcracker 9y ago
In the scenario you're describing a black hole would qualify, however IIRC there are other aspects of dark matter that black holes can't explain.
- RockyMcNuts 9y agoIf you assume a black hole, only certain masses and distances work, and they lens other objects. Picture I had was, if you had multiple objects affected, you could map the distribution of the gravitational anomaly, but it's over my head in terms of what the math and the assumptions are.
- antognini 9y agoYes, black holes and other compact objects have pretty much been ruled out as candidates for dark matter. The issue is that they would produce gravitational microlensing signals which are not observed. In brief, when the black hole passes in front of a star, its gravitational field magnifies the light from the star in a characteristic way. By analyzing the shape of the light curve, you can figure out pretty much everything about the system like the masses and the distances. Systematic surveys for these microlensing events like OGLE have not observed black hole microlensing events at the rate that would be needed for black holes to constitute most of the dark matter out there. They do observe quite a few planetary microlensing events, though.