Survey Finds No Hint of Dark Matter Near Solar System 125
Eponymous Hero writes "Does dark matter exist or doesn't it? It seems these results don't shed as much light as we'd hoped. 'Moni Bidin says he's not sure whether dark matter exists or not. But he says that his team's survey (PDF) is the most comprehensive of its type ever done, and the puzzling results must be reckoned with. "We don't have a good comprehension of what is going on," he says.' This has the smell of a Neutrinogate scandal, but at least we've been warned about the shoulder shrugging. 'As an example, Newberg notes that the researchers assumed that the group of stars they examined were smoothly distributed above and below the plane of the Milky Way. But if the distribution turns out to be lumpier, as is the case for stars in the outer parts of the galaxy, then the resulting calculations of dark matter density could be incorrect. Flynn agrees that there are a number of ways that the method employed by Moni Bidin and his co-authors "could get it wrong."'"
I'm not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never liked the theory of dark matter/energy. It always seemed to be a fudge factor thrown in to make the current theories work with what is observed. Astronomers have had good luck with that in the past, identifying planets and black holes based on gravitic effects, but they might have to a whole new approach to describe larger scales like this.
I truly hope it isn't dark matter. I *want* there to be a new theory. We'd end up learning so much more from it!
An alternative to DM: MOND (Score:3, Interesting)
I like to think I have an open mind when it comes to cosmology, but I've never liked the Dark Matter "theory". If they ever find direct evidence, fine, but I will remain unconvinced until then.
My personal favourite alternative hypothesis is called Modified Newtonian Dynamics, which is based on the idea that gravity exerts a stronger pull between objects that are more or less in the same inertial frame (ie at very low relative accelerations, that "acceleration is not linearly proportional to force at small values").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOND [wikipedia.org]
Obviously, a lot of people find this blasphemy, but I don't see what is so bad with modifying the law of gravity as compared to invoking "ghost matter".