3 ms·

Ask HN: Could there be lifeforms made of dark matter living right here with us?

6 points by techsin101 8y ago

Could there be living things made of dark matter? Could they be living with us right here on earth? could earth be combination of dark matter and ordinary matter coexisting in one ball? Just thought experiments.

zafka 8y ago
Fun questions. I have often considered that there could be life forms coexisting in our space that are completely undetectable to us at our current level of technology. They would not even have to be made of dark matter.
- techsin101 8y ago
  yes that has bothered me. think just how insects who can't see, don't know of birds, what if there is a sense we don't have and don't 'see' them.
  - techsin101 8y ago
    but birds see them, and they see us
    - CM30 8y ago
      And there are people who go missing. Eh, maybe they got attacked by something they couldn't see/detect with their senses... But seriously, this sounds like the kind of plot that'd work pretty well in a Doctor Who episode. And the logic I gave there was how they tried to justify the existence of stuff like the Weeping Angels and Vashta Nerada in story.
gus_massa 8y ago
I think that the current ideas of dark matter is that it is formed by some kind of particles that don't interact too much with normal matter, and also that don't interact too much between themselves. So it is more like a gas than something that is solid or liquid, so [I think] [that the current guess is that] there are no dark life forms. For example see https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillianscudder/2016/12/22/astroquizzical-dark-matter-star/#1dbde2b21ead https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillianscudder/2016/12/22/astro... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Composition_of_dark_matter:_baryonic_vs._nonbaryonic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Composition_of_dar... As always, remember that this is a very new, difficult to measure, not very understand problem, so future results may change this guess.

3 ms·

Ask HN: Could there be lifeforms made of dark matter living right here with us?

6 points by techsin101 8y ago

zafka 8y ago
Fun questions. I have often considered that there could be life forms coexisting in our space that are completely undetectable to us at our current level of technology. They would not even have to be made of dark matter.
- techsin101 8y ago
  yes that has bothered me. think just how insects who can't see, don't know of birds, what if there is a sense we don't have and don't 'see' them.
  - techsin101 8y ago
    but birds see them, and they see us
    - CM30 8y ago
      And there are people who go missing. Eh, maybe they got attacked by something they couldn't see/detect with their senses... But seriously, this sounds like the kind of plot that'd work pretty well in a Doctor Who episode. And the logic I gave there was how they tried to justify the existence of stuff like the Weeping Angels and Vashta Nerada in story.
gus_massa 8y ago
I think that the current ideas of dark matter is that it is formed by some kind of particles that don't interact too much with normal matter, and also that don't interact too much between themselves. So it is more like a gas than something that is solid or liquid, so [I think] [that the current guess is that] there are no dark life forms. For example see https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillianscudder/2016/12/22/astroquizzical-dark-matter-star/#1dbde2b21ead https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillianscudder/2016/12/22/astro... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Composition_of_dark_matter:_baryonic_vs._nonbaryonic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Composition_of_dar... As always, remember that this is a very new, difficult to measure, not very understand problem, so future results may change this guess.