http://phys.org/news/2014-10-dark-thought-scientists.html

http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/794/1/59/

Well done to our old astrophysicist

I heart astrology.

The story in IFLS

http://www.iflscience.com/space/new-measurements-suggest-there-may-be-half-much-dark-matter-milky-way-previously-thought

Dropbear said:

The story in IFLS

http://www.iflscience.com/space/new-measurements-suggest-there-may-be-half-much-dark-matter-milky-way-previously-thought

He’s hit the big time. :)

Meh, he’s just one of the middle authors.

> “As explained by lead author Dr. Prajwal Kafle, the widely accepted idea of galaxy formation and evolution — the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory— predicts that there should be numerous large satellite galaxies around the Milky Way. However, when their new measurement is applied, the theory predicts that there should only be three. And that is precisely what we observe: the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.”

Huh?

I agree that the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory is the most widely accepted mathematical model of dark matter. But the Milky way has a dozen or so companions, as well as numerous globular clusters that used to be companions in the distant past.

> “Although dark matter is very difficult to study … measuring the speed that stars are travelling throughout our galaxy. While astronomers have been doing this for some time, they had never used it to examine the very edges of the Milky Way, which is what they did in this latest study.”

Astronomers had previously gone one better than that. Most stars near the outer edge of the Milky Way still aren’t beyond the outer edge of the dark matter, which means that the total amount of dark matter in the Milky Way was unknown for much longer than you might think, much longer than for most distant galaxies. Finally, to overcome that limitation, some smart astronomers measured the speeds of satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. These were far enough out to be beyond the bulk of the Milky Way’s dark matter, and it was by this means that the total dark matter in the Milky Way was measured. However, when last I looked into it (and that was many years ago) the total amount of dark matter in the Milky Way was still uncertain by more than a factor of two.

Carmen_Sandiego said:

Dropbear said:

The story in IFLS

http://www.iflscience.com/space/new-measurements-suggest-there-may-be-half-much-dark-matter-milky-way-previously-thought

He’s hit the big time. :)

At least people read that :)