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ad_exiaUhm. So as a kind of addendum: What the heck was I talking about before? :D;;
Dark Matter! Basically it all boils down to this: Everything we can actually SEE in our universe, that gives off some kind of light or heat (stars and galaxies even black holes and things like that) only makes up about somesmallpercent (think, like, 3% or something) of the total EVERYTHING in the universe! D: This is a problem for astronomers - what the heck is the other stuff?!
Most of it's called dark matter because it doesn't give off any light so we can't see it. We know it has gravity by measuring the way galaxies rotate and interact - if we add up all the mass that we can see, there's this big chunk of mass we aren't seeing so that's what we call dark matter. But we don't know what it is! So there are a ton of experiments trying to measure the mass of the particles that make it up. Some of these experiments are trying to do it by smashing things like protons and electrons together to watch what happens (particle accelerators), and some people want to smash other things together as well (things that are called muons, they're just another particle like electrons or protons or neutrons but they don't live very long before they turn into other things, which is a problem). But you have to build different kinds of accelerators (to make the particles go really fast so you can smash them together and break them up) for different kinds of particles. You can make protons go around in a circle, but you can't make electrons do it or they slow down. And like I said, muons are hard because they don't live long!
There are lots of other experiments to figure out what dark matter is - like taking a big pool of water or some number of kg of something dense and putting it underground and WATCHINGIT like crazy and hoping that a dark matter particle will smash into it and do something. Those are cheaper to build than the big accelerators so there are lots of them. (And the Australian one is called Cangaroo and I think that's awesome. XD) We also have satellites planned that will try to look for reactions of dark matter interacting with things in really dense parts of the universe, like the middle of our galaxy. But those won't launch for a while.
So! I hope that helped. I swear I'm not off my rocker - all the physicists who make this crap up are. XD;; I just take classes on it. ^^;
Dark Matter! Basically it all boils down to this: Everything we can actually SEE in our universe, that gives off some kind of light or heat (stars and galaxies even black holes and things like that) only makes up about somesmallpercent (think, like, 3% or something) of the total EVERYTHING in the universe! D: This is a problem for astronomers - what the heck is the other stuff?!
Most of it's called dark matter because it doesn't give off any light so we can't see it. We know it has gravity by measuring the way galaxies rotate and interact - if we add up all the mass that we can see, there's this big chunk of mass we aren't seeing so that's what we call dark matter. But we don't know what it is! So there are a ton of experiments trying to measure the mass of the particles that make it up. Some of these experiments are trying to do it by smashing things like protons and electrons together to watch what happens (particle accelerators), and some people want to smash other things together as well (things that are called muons, they're just another particle like electrons or protons or neutrons but they don't live very long before they turn into other things, which is a problem). But you have to build different kinds of accelerators (to make the particles go really fast so you can smash them together and break them up) for different kinds of particles. You can make protons go around in a circle, but you can't make electrons do it or they slow down. And like I said, muons are hard because they don't live long!
There are lots of other experiments to figure out what dark matter is - like taking a big pool of water or some number of kg of something dense and putting it underground and WATCHINGIT like crazy and hoping that a dark matter particle will smash into it and do something. Those are cheaper to build than the big accelerators so there are lots of them. (And the Australian one is called Cangaroo and I think that's awesome. XD) We also have satellites planned that will try to look for reactions of dark matter interacting with things in really dense parts of the universe, like the middle of our galaxy. But those won't launch for a while.
So! I hope that helped. I swear I'm not off my rocker - all the physicists who make this crap up are. XD;; I just take classes on it. ^^;
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Date: 2005-11-23 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 03:42 am (UTC)Though I must say, I doubt they will find dark matter, because I think the "dark matter" is really just having an incomplete understanding of gravity and such. Considering that things get out of wack when you use Newton's laws in our solar system (Mercury), I think applying them to everything may be problematic. Eh, they'll figure it out either way someday.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 03:53 am (UTC)... [/textbook :x]
Anyway, glad you enjoyed! This stuff is really cool. :D
From SS
Date: 2005-11-23 04:21 am (UTC)Re: From SS
Date: 2005-11-23 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 06:22 am (UTC)....I love you so, so much. <3
no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 07:58 am (UTC)<3
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Date: 2005-11-23 11:00 am (UTC)glad I got to talk to you today!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 05:46 pm (UTC)Ditto~! Hopefully we'll get to talk again soon!