Posted on 09/23/2008 4:46:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered.
Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon "dark flow."
The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude.
When scientists talk about the observable universe, they don't just mean as far out as the eye, or even the most powerful telescope, can see. In fact there's a fundamental limit to how much of the universe we could ever observe, no matter how advanced our visual instruments. The universe is thought to have formed about 13.7 billion years ago. So even if light started travelling toward us immediately after the Big Bang, the farthest it could ever get is 13.7 billion light-years in distance. There may be parts of the universe that are farther away (we can't know how big the whole universe is), but we can't see farther than light could travel over the entire age of the universe.
Mysterious motions
Scientists discovered the flow by studying some of the largest structures in the cosmos: giant clusters of galaxies. These clusters are conglomerations of about a thousand galaxies, as well as very hot gas which emits X-rays. By observing the interaction of the X-rays with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is leftover radiation from the Big Bang, scientists can study the movement of clusters.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Bump for later.....C
hmmmm, wonder what it can be, eh?
Probably the same hardheaded researchers who scoff at intelligent design...
Dibs on it!
Space ping
Extra-terrestrial Guinness.
The Nothing.
...or anthropic principle.
Naaahhh!! That’s Beck’s Dark!
The observable universe is approximately 93 billion light years across. Because space-time has been expanding, light has covered a much greater distance in 13.7 billion years than if the universe had not been expanding.
It is irritating that science writers rely more on leaps of logic than actual science.
“we can’t know how big the whole universe is”
hmm, I thought we could make a pretty good guess at this. Somebody enlighten me.
Sounds like a Type III civilization on the move.
how can they bother , or hope to study this if it is ‘outside the observable universe’?
are the also admittng that THERE IS SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE????
Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s Bush’s fault.
I’ve had the dark flow. I got better.
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