Milky Way's Core: New Theory Says It's a "Massive Dark-Matter Collider"

[n2doc]

The image left shows the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, showing a massive star cluster located 5.8 kiloparsecs (almost 20,000 light years) away from Earth in the constellation Scutum. This cluster contains 14 red supergiants, each between 8 and 25 times the mass of our Sun, and it emits great bursts of x-rays and gamma rays created, according to a new theory, by collisions of mysterious dark matter.

Cosmologists say they’ve found the most compelling evidence of dark matter particles to date, deep inside Milky Way’s core shown in the image below.Their theory shows the elusive dark matter colliding to create cosmic rays more frequently than anywhere else in the galaxy.

Dan Hooper, the study's lead author and a cosmologist at both Fermilab in Illinois and the University of Chicago says: “We’ve considered every astronomical source and nothing we know of, except dark matter, can account for the observations.

“No other explanation comes anywhere close.”The claim has yet to meet the full scrutiny of other scientists, but those who have read it said they’ll be following discussions about the work closely.“This is the first study I know of that pulls together a few threads of evidence for dark matter together with one simple particle model,” said Craig Hogan, an astrophysicist at Fermilab who wasn’t involved in the research. “It’s not proven, but it’s very exciting and deserves follow-up.”

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http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/10/milky-ways-core-yields-strong-evidence-of-dark-matter.html

[byronius]

1. I'd really like to see that up close.

[Ian David]

2. That's stupid. Everyone knows God lives there, and he needs a starship.

Excuse me... Excuse me... I just wanted to ask a question. What does God need with a starship?

[originalpckelly]

7. You do realize that you are one of the coolest people on DU, right?

:P

[jaksavage]

3. Thanks for the perspective

You always add great depth to our average daily consumption of news and views.

[thereismore]

4. No giant black hole? How disappointing. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. This doesn't preclude a black hole there as well

This would then be mark matter orbiting the central black hole, just like the rest of the galaxy.

[txaslftist]

5. Wow. I thought it was creamy nugat.

Not eating any more of those!

[pokerfan]

6. I see a massive fleet of Pak Protectors fleeing the galaxy core

in interstellar fusion ramjets at just under the speed of light and destroying everything in their path because they're xenophobic assholes.