Have They Found Dark Matter?

From the linked article, "Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets..."

Oh, well. There goes even more of our taxes to pay for shelters for homeless planets.

I think global warming/climate change and economic upheaval may be the cause for why they are homeless.

Can I get $100 million grant to study this theory more in depth now?

In fact, there may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars,

That is of no interest to me, I would just like to know how many stars (plus/minus 100,000) we think we are observing. OK, make that +/- 100,000,000 who's counting?

You can't find dark matter it finds you, as this article proves.

, Ky.

Before there were homes, everybody was homeless...

These nomad planets might be one component of previously undetected interstellar mass.

Another might be the hypothesized "sea of virtual particles" scintillating into and out of existence throughout the "vacuum" of space, according to Quantum Electrodynamics (Feynman diagrams).

I don't know where this idea lies on a scale between conjectured and established.

Observation seems to detect these dark matter masses as not being homogenous. What you propose would be a product of a homogenous sea of space.

I read the article. One of Mark Twain's quotes is really appropriate for this:

"One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

What the unknowing refer to as "dark matter" are really coldons who are very shy. The hotsies are the gregarious ones that are all over the place.

"Could this be the dark matter they are looking for?"

This could very well be the answer to the 'galaxy rotation problem', but not for the overall cosmological (clusters and higher) dark matter problem. AFAIK, the cosmic scale evidence for dark matter does not quite fit the galaxy rotation curves. See link near end of post.

There was a theory some long time ago that mini-black holes formed during or just after inflation could perhaps account for all the 'missing matter' required to balance the books of cosmology and galaxy rotation curves. AFAIK (or remember), it was discounted on the basis that the nucleo-synthesis of baryonic matter during the BB could not make enough normal of the stuff to go into the mini black holes. It had to be some form of non-baryonic matter that make up the 'cosmic dark matter - stuff that very weakly interact with normal matter, like neutrinos. The 'bullet cluster' has given very good evidence for this type of non-baryonic dark matter.

-J

Hi Jorrie,

Thanks for the link. If nomad planets outnumber stars by 100,000 as stated, the mass estimates (for barionic matter) of the galaxies could at least double. If I remember correctly, the missing matter is about 73%. Neutrinos are good bet for some of it. It is interesting that the MOND theory, spoken of in your link, claims to account for the rest. Of coarse everybody wants their own theory to be right. The case is far from settled.

-S

KIPAC might have answers... but so might K-PAX.

Here is some new evidence for dark matter, possibly another type, that was posted on another thread.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/nasa-new-dark-matter-observations-defy-explanation/