Dark Matters

By Roger Colins

___________________________________________________________ Dark matter has been driven to the forefront of investigation since the search for Higgs Bosons came to an abrupt end last year, following a 5.9 sigma result. The next LHC labs fired up in CERN, Switzerland are the 'CMS' Compact Muon Spectrometer and the Toroidal LHC Apparatus, 'ATLAS'. Bods will tweak and twang their instruments, spin the accellorator and see how much dark matter and or, dark energy, they can find. But it's dark, which means you can't see it, right? Dark matter was first proposed by Jan Oort and then Fritz Zwicky because there's a missing 95 per cent of all matter that should be in the universe. Historically, to observe the wind we only need see the leaves blow but with dark matter, it isn't going to be that easy. If looking for the ether, or where sub atomic particles go when they take a vacation, even measuring the disparity between absolute zero and Planck might not even make dark matter flinch, especially if it is just the left over 'ash' of larger building blocks. I would begin with a black hole. Stars are hotter on the outside than they are in the middle so how cold would the core of a black hole be? Shred an atom into it's component parts, further shred your electrons, protons and neutrons into theirs and then try to do it to quantum particles. Strings will certainly leap to the forefront but dark matter cannot be dismissed from the equation. A black hole could be the best place to start because there if there's anything that might provide this penultimate step, it would be the most powerful accelerators in the universe. The centre of every galaxy is supposed to have one but we can't see them, not just because they're the black, we can see the leaves blow, but because they're also shrouded by their galaxy of stars. A veritable needle in a haystack. Could we use a magnet then? Gravity of galactic black holes are the anchor for the disc of stars spinning round them. While the black hole eats away at any one that gets too close, what about including the accumulated gravitational force of those stars, on the black hole? They may in turn provide an effect on the monster as well. Gravity may be very weak but we're talking about super massive black holes versus the sum mass of the rest of their galaxy. It is worth consideration.

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The BAO: Mother of Astronomical Rulers

By Roger Colins

1 AU  = 93 million miles (distance from the Sun to the Earth) _______________________________________________________ 1 light year =  63,000 AU (1/4 distance to nearest star) 1 baryon acoustic oscillation = 500,000 light years (1/5 distance to nearest galaxy) The last one has just been discovered by BOSS, the Baryon Acoustic Spectroscopic Survey, a useful addition to the tool set for measuring the distance between galaxies and the largest unit of measurement devised yet. For those that are unaware, AU stands for astronomical unit and is roughly the distance from the Sun to the Earth, a light year is the distance travelled by light in one year and a BAO, about four and a half times the diameter of the Milky Way. Astronomy has really been ramping up in recent years as the help of technological advances spit ever more sharply sensitive telescopes into space. Backed up with the constantly improved software to scan more space, for more wavelengths spur on the colleges, faculties and space exploration agencies. Currently, so far as is readily observable, Dark Matter has become the most popular target for study since the Higgs Boson and this new ruler; an important measuring stick to mark out the distances between the galaxies and produce practicable data on Dark Matter. Whether or not the BAO has more useful applications remains to be seen though it's entirely possible it will start appearing in high school text books of the next generation.

astronomy science ruler

Star Lapping

As a new year settles in I am reminded of what a year is and where it came from. Birthdays, anniversaries, independence days, all days, all allotted and kept safe so long as you weren't born in a leap year. ______________________________________________________ Someone once said that marking one day out of 365 was the same as measuring a lap around the sun, which seemed to me to be quite fair. As far as we can accurately discern our movement around the sun, we attach to that seemingly arbitrary clock; time. It is something that always fascinates me in the same way as I am sure we have all found ourselves staring at a sunrise. Our lives run like clockwork, the world turns and the earth's orbital planetoid dances to it's own rhythm. We calculate the spin of the stars around us so to know that, one year has passed, another has begun while the sun and the moon stare down at us bewildered at our ridiculous time wasting just so that we can, measure time. I understand some of Einstein’s theories, am an avid fan of anything astronomical from stars to comets and landers and photos but there is always that unerring, misunderstanding of my own position in regard to all that which goes on around our tiny little planet. A mystery that will never be solved means that we can carry on staring out into the cosmos, wondering with imagination just why we as humans have come up with this sensible punctuality. There have been several inventors of several different clocks, timepieces and what have you but it just so happened that it was the earth's distance from the sun that predetermined just what we were going to measure our time with. The Sun. Some could argue that some used the moon to measure their calendars, others will argue both. Either way, every time I stare up at the sky and spot a celestial body, this very same thought comes back to me and, not that I would ever wish to, but I doubt I will ever be able to shake that endless wonder. I hope that one day a space agency or faculty could plot out a map of the earth's actual path around the sun (with all due relativity) including each and every due birthday, anniversary and new year. I am sure such a thing is already tucked away on a NASA server somewhere with our planet's past and future, where we have been and where we're going. I for one would love to see how closely we really do measure years in laps as our planet's lasso slings us round and round in one long unending marathon, taking us ever onward to new points in space time.

Stars Astonomy Science