NASA/UNC
Posted on 04/27/2012 4:12:19 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Invisible dark matter particles may regularly pass through our bodies, and dozens to thousands of these particles may be colliding with atoms inside us every year, according to a new calculation.
However, radiation from these impacts is unlikely to cause cancer, investigators added.
Dark matter is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time — an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists think it might be composed of things called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, that interact normally with gravity but very weakly with all the other known forces of the universe.
Its ghostly nature makes it exceedingly difficult to directly prove whether dark matter really exists or what its properties really are. Dark matter is largely thought to be intangible, its presence detectable only via the gravitational pull it exerts.
Still, although dark matter particles are thought to interact only very rarely with normal matter, Earth and everything on it should be hurtling through a dense sea of dark matter, with billions of these particles rushing through us every second. Though the large majority of these particles would pass straight through us without hitting any of the atoms that make up our bodies, a few collisions would be likely. And the aftermath of such impacts could shed light on dark matter's nature. [Gallery: Dark Matter Throughout the Universe]
Scientists calculated how many times dark matter particles ought to collide with atomic nuclei in adult-size bodies — lumps of flesh about 154 pounds (70 kilograms) in mass largely composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Dark matter should most often collide with the hydrogen and oxygen nuclei in the body — the former makes up 60 percent of the atoms in the body, while the latter makes up about 60 percent of the mass of the body. Given the most common assumptions regarding what dark matter is, roughly 35 impacts between dark matter particles and atoms in your body should happen annually.
However, if the latest models are correct and dark matter interactions are more common than previously thought, there might be about 100,000 collisions annually for each human on the planet.
a possible explanation for spontaneous human combustion, maybe where folks go sometimes.. pooof.
next thing yaknow yur in another dimension or institution
“dark matter” is one of the biggest joke/frauds played on the rest of the grant suckers.
IF dark matter is intangible, but reacts to gravity, shouldn;t it be sinking down and accumulating in the aarths core? And wouldn’t that add to the planet’s mass and gravity over time? Anybody know?
"...I've been known to pass dark matter if fed clams and raspberries....the collision part comes if the door isn't open"
I am not sure I would call it a fraud. I predict that ultimately the scientists will say that there is no dark matter, and that their previous belief that dark matter exists was the result of a misunderstanding of the basic laws of physics. However, so far no one has put up dark matter as an excuse to spend trillions of dollars re-engineering society. That’s global warming.
You make a good point, why wouldn’t dark matter form it’s own stars and solar systems? There is certainly a tendency for normal matter to clump up and form huge clumps.
However, as to your first question. If dark matter only interacts gravitationally, then, if was not originally graviationally bound to the earth, it would gain enough kinetic energy as it fell towards (or even through!) the earth to have escape velocity from the earth as it passes through it and out the other side! The interaction of the two bodies (earth and dark matter) might deflect them, but there would be not net exchange of energy.
Hmm, so would you receive more than the “average”, by say, living under or near power lines?
A dark matter named Obama collides with my logic everyday.
If you changed either the special theory or the general theory just slightly, dark matter would disappear completely, I suspect. Actually, you would probably need to change both because they dovetail with each other.
In particular, I note that the evidence for dark matter and dark energy are contradictory. On a galactic scale, it seems that there is too much gravity to be explained by the visible matter, so they hypothesize dark matter. But on the universal scale, it seems that the expansion of the universe is too fast, given how weak gravity is, to be explained without dark energy. So on one hand, gravity is too weak to explain reality. On the other hand, it’s too strong. In my opinion, that shows that it tapers off at a rate that is greater than what we believe.
Do you think “dark matter” is Satan ?
Did you ever see that old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin makes fun of it? “Why do they call it dark matter? Because it’s dark? Duh! That’s the best name they could come up with? A duh!”
I released some dark matter this morning.
Roughage will help pass that dark matter on out.
Fortunately, I pass most of it.
“Dark matter should most often collide with the hydrogen and oxygen nuclei in the body — the former makes up 60 percent of the atoms in the body, while the latter makes up about 60 percent of the mass of the body. Given the most common assumptions regarding what dark matter is, roughly 35 impacts between dark matter particles and atoms in your body should happen annually.”
Well, there’s a testable hypothesis—so long as the impacts are measurable.
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