Dark matter and dark energy may really be one "dark fluid" with negative mass

[Judi Lynn]

PHYSICS
Michael Irving
4 hours ago

The Standard Model of particle physics is currently our best understanding of how the universe works – but it only describes about five percent of everything in it. The rest is made up of what we call dark matter and dark energy, which are so far only known through their gravitational interactions with regular matter. Now, an astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a "dark fluid" with negative mass that fills the universe.

In a way, dark matter and dark energy are both placeholder concepts, plugging holes between the Standard Model and what we actually observe. For instance, the observed movement and distribution of galaxies doesn't make sense if their mass is limited to the stuff we can see. Since the 1930s, this hidden extra mass has been dubbed dark matter.

Dark energy is a more recent concept. The observation that the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating was only made in 1998, when it was discovered that more distant objects are moving away from us faster than those closer by. The mysterious force that drives this, which we still know very little about, is now referred to as dark energy.

Taken together, dark matter and dark energy form the basis of our current standard model of Big Bang cosmology, the Lambda-CDM model. The Lambda in that name denotes dark energy as a kind of cosmological constant, while CDM stands for "cold dark matter," which seems to be the most accurate theory of the stuff – it's "cold" because it moves relatively slowly and interacts fairly weakly with ordinary matter.

More:
https://newatlas.com/dark-fluid-theory-matter-energy/57540/

[shenmue]

1. Oh great, we're gonna die

[Judi Lynn]

3. What's gonna become of us?

[shenmue]

7. This is too weird

[Judi Lynn]

2. A Strange 'Dark Fluid' Could Explain The Missing 95 Percent of The Universe

MIKE MCRAE 6 DEC 2018

Galaxies spin faster than they should. Space is spreading apart when it shouldn't. And it's all starting to feel like we're forever going to be in the dark when it comes to the big questions in physics.

One physicist's solution lies in a hypothetical 'fluid' with negative mass. No, such a material has never been seen before. But the hunt for exotic particles and energies is getting harder by the day, so it's worth keeping our options open.

Jamie Farnes from the University of Oxford suggests we go back to Einstein's theory of general relativity – the one that describes gravity in terms of space-time geometry – and tweak it a little so it permits matter with negative mass to pop into existence.

This emergence of a strange 'pushing' particle could solve two of physics' most frustrating mysteries – why do galaxies hold together as they spin? And why does the Universe seem to be growing so quickly today compared with the past?

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-strange-dark-fluid-could-explain-the-missing-95-percent-of-the-universe

[Achilleaze]

4. Dipping into the mystery of Dark Fluid

[Duppers]

5. Fascinating

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

- John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892 – 1964) British geneticist, evolutionary biologist.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

6. More likely that DM/DE results from a new form of the most common element in the Universe, hydrogen

rather then some hypothetical mystery fluid... just at a lower energy state, meaning that the hydrogen atom's single electron is more tightly bound to the proton in the nucleus. This new form of matter would explain many scientific phenomenon, including the fact that it is "dark," i.e., the lower energy hydrogen's electron is incapable of undergoing photonic transitions to higher energy levels above the former "ground state" that would radiate light. This more dense form of hydrogen, produced by the 100's of trillions of stars contained in the 100's of billions of galaxies in the Universe, would also explain its unaccounted for mass and energy, and, thus, its not so surprising accelerated expansion, contrary to what Big Bang theory predicts, as well as the mystery of the extraordinarily high temperature of the sun's corona - millions of degrees, as compared to a few thousand degrees at the sun's surface - where these transitions to lower-energy states of hydrogen are occurring. So many mysteries in astrophysics solved by one simple, straight-forward explanation.