’Dark noodles’ between stars in the Milky Way could be missing matter

Mysterious lumps in gas clouds connecting stars in the Milky Way could comprise a significant amount of the galaxy’s missing matter, according to Australian scientists.

Key points

Noodle-shaped lumps lie in gas between stars in the Milky Way Discovery challenges understanding of gas in Milky Way Lumps in gas work like lenses, focusing and defocusing radio waves They may make up a substantial amount of galaxy’s dark matter

The invisible structures, reported in the journal Science, are thought to be shaped like noodles, lasagne sheets or possibly hazelnuts.

more…

CrazyNeutrino said:

’Dark noodles’ between stars in the Milky Way could be missing matter

Mysterious lumps in gas clouds connecting stars in the Milky Way could comprise a significant amount of the galaxy’s missing matter, according to Australian scientists.

Key points

Noodle-shaped lumps lie in gas between stars in the Milky Way Discovery challenges understanding of gas in Milky Way Lumps in gas work like lenses, focusing and defocusing radio waves They may make up a substantial amount of galaxy’s dark matter

The invisible structures, reported in the journal Science, are thought to be shaped like noodles, lasagne sheets or possibly hazelnuts.

more…

I’m still to be convinced that these exist. In the past, rapid variations in quasar luminosity have been a sign of small scale processes in the close vicinity of the quasar, not signs of ionized gas within the Milky Way. Further, if these are in the Milky Way then what energises them? (aliens?).

As for thin sheets of ionized gas being the origins of dark matter, this was ruled out by the picture of the Bullet Cluster, where the position of the ionized gas was incompatible with the position of the dark matter. Equally telling is that dark matter of galaxies resides in the halo, where there’s nothing to ionize any gas.