4 ms·

We know two things about dark matter: - It doesn't interact electromagnetically. - It does interact gravitationally and produces extra gravitational attraction

We know two things about dark matter: - It doesn't interact electromagnetically. - It does interact gravitationally and produces extra gravitational attraction beyond the electromagnetically interacting matter we know about. - It is dispersed throughout galaxies. The first property rules out baryonic antimatter as dark matter, since that would interact electromagnetically. The last two properties rule out anything that has a repulsive gravitational interaction as dark matter.

VladRussian 15y ago
>We know two things about dark matter: while we don't know whether it exists at all. Whatever phenomena are explained by DM are also easy explained by molecular hydrogen (i.e H2) which is almost not detectable. [The hydrogen we know about in the space is atomic - H, and there should be orders of magnitude more of molecular one than atomic when you have atomic at such interstellar space conditions]
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  We know that dark matter cannot be baryonic matter (atoms) for two reasons. First, models of the big bang that have been confirmed by experiment closely bound the total amount of baryonic matter in the Universe. Second, dark matter doesn't seem to behave the same way that baryonic matter behaves (normal matter clumps, dark matter doesn't appear to do so).
  - VladRussian 15y ago
    >...models of the big bang that have been confirmed by experiment ... to put it mildly, it is a very overreaching statement. >Second, dark matter doesn't seem to behave the same way that baryonic matter behaves (normal matter clumps, dark matter doesn't appear to do so). double whammy - we couldn't observe dark matter and we couldn't observe its clumps. Or consider it another way - while it supposedly have gravitational attraction, and have no other strong interactions known, we somehow should suppose that its non-clumping, ie. gaseous/cloudy/spread-around state is still a normal thing.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation#Primary_anisotropy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_rad... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Galaxy_clusters_and_gravitational_lensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Galaxy_clusters_and...

VladRussian 15y ago

>We know two things about dark matter: while we don't know whether it exists at all. Whatever phenomena are explained by DM are also easy explained by molecular hydrogen (i.e H2) which is almost not detectable. [The hydrogen we know about in the space is atomic - H, and there should be orders of magnitude more of molecular one than atomic when you have atomic at such interstellar space conditions]

InclinedPlane 15y ago
We know that dark matter cannot be baryonic matter (atoms) for two reasons. First, models of the big bang that have been confirmed by experiment closely bound the total amount of baryonic matter in the Universe. Second, dark matter doesn't seem to behave the same way that baryonic matter behaves (normal matter clumps, dark matter doesn't appear to do so).
- VladRussian 15y ago
  >...models of the big bang that have been confirmed by experiment ... to put it mildly, it is a very overreaching statement. >Second, dark matter doesn't seem to behave the same way that baryonic matter behaves (normal matter clumps, dark matter doesn't appear to do so). double whammy - we couldn't observe dark matter and we couldn't observe its clumps. Or consider it another way - while it supposedly have gravitational attraction, and have no other strong interactions known, we somehow should suppose that its non-clumping, ie. gaseous/cloudy/spread-around state is still a normal thing.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation#Primary_anisotropy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_rad... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Galaxy_clusters_and_gravitational_lensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Galaxy_clusters_and...