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Really *BIG* particles?

Boomerang CMB plot

A New Scientist article called (of all things!) Globs In Space — and which, sadly isn’t on-line to read as I type this — postulates CDM [Cold/Dark Matter] particles, each particle as big as a galaxy.

They’re not very dense compared with ordinary matter, but they’re an attempt to bring what we see in line with what we expect.

Thankfully, science is socially variable. As this attempt to invent such galactically-obscure objects trundles along, other scientists are preparing to drive the Pioneer satellites around to check our understanding of how gravity works, and still others are marvelling that the CMB [Cosmic Microwave Background] Radiation so far seen really doesn’t match any reasonable form of Big Bang (or any recognised Dark Matter theories), and are trying to figure out why not.

So... objects as different as a few tonnes of comet or asteroid versus collections of bazillion-tonne whole galaxies are all coming under the research glasses.

The results should be interesting: on one hand, the CMB (and the like) missions didn’t provide the results that they were sent up expecting to find — but on the up-side, genuine real science (-: and probably some butte-covering, too :-) is still getting done with what they really observed.

Hurrah for diversity! And for Open-Source-style-ish science results!

Comments

Leon RJ Brooks said…
Interestingly, one of the experiments which shows the CMB results mismatching is called BOOMerang even though it's not Australian.

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