Missing mass/energy.

Could anyone tell me have scientists found the missing mass in our universe?

Originally posted by murphius
Could anyone tell me have scientists found the missing mass in our universe?

Short answer: Resounding NO. Still theory, or theories, atpit.

Why do you think there is missing mass?

EDIT

In 1933, the astronomer Fritz Zwicky was studying the motions of distant galaxies. Zwicky estimated the total mass of a group of galaxies by measuring their brightness. When he used a different method to compute the mass of the same cluster of galaxies, he came up with a number that was 400 times his original estimate (1). This discrepancy in the observed and computed masses is now known as "the missing mass problem." Nobody did much with Zwicky's finding until the 1970's, when scientists began to realize that only large amounts of hidden mass could explain many of their observations (2). Scientists also realize that the existence of some unseen mass would also support theories regarding the structure of the universe (3).

http://www.eclipse.net/~cmmiller/DM/

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Why do you think there is missing mass?

EDIT

In 1933, the astronomer Fritz Zwicky was studying the motions of distant galaxies. Zwicky estimated the total mass of a group of galaxies by measuring their brightness. When he used a different method to compute the mass of the same cluster of galaxies, he came up with a number that was 400 times his ...[text shortened]... eories regarding the structure of the universe (3).

http://www.eclipse.net/~cmmiller/DM/

Good article

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Why do you think there is missing mass?

EDIT

In 1933, the astronomer Fritz Zwicky was studying the motions of distant galaxies. Zwicky estimated the total mass of a group of galaxies by measuring their brightness. When he used a different method to compute the mass of the same cluster of galaxies, he came up with a number that was 400 times his ...[text shortened]... eories regarding the structure of the universe (3).

http://www.eclipse.net/~cmmiller/DM/

Thank you for the link. That article was great. Will reread and reread until i clear up my muddled thoughts.
I always understood that there was a problem in that scientists had no idea what could account for the missing mass problem.
What puzzles me though is................. if the galaxies are all moving away from each other how come the Andromeda galaxy is approaching our galaxy?
If each Galaxy has a supermassive black hole in its centre couldn't 90% of universal mass already be inside these black holes? Maybe Galaxies wouldn't have formed without a black hole to congregate around. Any thoughts about this so as to unfuddle my muddle would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

Originally posted by murphius
Thank you for the link. That article was great. Will reread and reread until i clear up my muddled thoughts.
I always understood that there was a problem in that scientists had no idea what could account for the missing mass problem.
What puzzles me though is................. if the galaxies are all moving away from each other how come the Andromeda gala ...[text shortened]... e around. Any thoughts about this so as to unfuddle my muddle would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

All galaxies are not moving away from one another. All galaxy CLUSTERS are moving away from one another. Andromeda is in our cluster.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
All galaxies are not moving away from one another. All galaxy CLUSTERS are moving away from one another. Andromeda is in our cluster.

Concerning galaxies ...

Aren't there also clusters of clusters ? I mean local groups and super local groups ?

Originally posted by murphius
Thank you for the link. That article was great. Will reread and reread until i clear up my muddled thoughts.
I always understood that there was a problem in that scientists had no idea what could account for the missing mass problem.
What puzzles me though is................. if the galaxies are all moving away from each other how come the Andromeda gala ...[text shortened]... e around. Any thoughts about this so as to unfuddle my muddle would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

If two galaxies are relatively close, their mutual gravitation will overcome the expansion force and still collide. There are literally thousands of galaxies that already collided that way. They tend to go from being spirals like ours and Andromeda to elliptical, a big elliptical blob of stars with much less definition in the shape because of the collision of two galaxies. The interesting thing about galactic collisions is not that stars will crash into one another, they are usually too far separated from one another, light years apart, but the gasses that tag along each galaxy, will crash into one another inevitably and massive slow compression takes place and starts to generate a new generation of stars, so the action in a galactic collision is in the intragalactic gasses and not the stars. Also what can happen is there is usually a giant black hole at the center of galaxies, including our own milky way and sometimes those black holes collide with a huge galactic strength outflowing of energy caused by a great increase in the infalling gasses, the black hole will suck up material including whole stars but some of that stuff gets blown back in the form of X rays emitted by the compression infalls to the black hole, of course even X rays cannot escape if they go inside the event horizon but massive heating takes place just outside the point of no return and X rays with the power of millions of suns goes out into space which we pick up with X ray telescopes.

Originally posted by jaywill
Concerning galaxies ...

Aren't there also clusters of clusters ? I mean local groups and super local groups ?

Yeah, I've seen something about that.

Originally posted by murphius
Could anyone tell me have scientists found the missing mass in our universe?

Yes! It was behind the bookshelves all along.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Yes! It was behind the bookshelves all along.

Behind the bookshelves, there are more bookshelves.

I once read an article that spoke of the amount of time it takes light to travel from one side of a proton to the other.

Needless to say this was a very tiny amount of time. It takes a nanosecond for light to travel one foot.

Do any scientist surmise that it this tiny length of time, (for light to travel from one end of a proton to the other).

Could there be forces working on a subatomic level which are a trillion times tinier than this amount of time ?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Behind the bookshelves, there are more bookshelves.

And each book is a bookshelf in itself...

Originally posted by sonhouse
If two galaxies are relatively close, their mutual gravitation will overcome the expansion force and still collide. There are literally thousands of galaxies that already collided that way. They tend to go from being spirals like ours and Andromeda to elliptical, a big elliptical blob of stars with much less definition in the shape because of the collision ...[text shortened]... s with the power of millions of suns goes out into space which we pick up with X ray telescopes.

So as i understand your post, lots of stars and planets have dissapeared into black holes. Maybe even whole galaxies. Maybe the missing mass is outside but surrounding our universe. Maybe that is what Zwicky was able to measure. Just a little theory of mine.

Originally posted by murphius
So as i understand your post, lots of stars and planets have dissapeared into black holes. Maybe even whole galaxies. Maybe the missing mass is outside but surrounding our universe. Maybe that is what Zwicky was able to measure. Just a little theory of mine.

Actually, there are theories about other universes outside ours maybe impinging on our universe, like a bunch of ping pong balls in a box. My own half baked theory is those universes would be causing the expansion of our own universe due to gravity attracting the other universes and ours. There is a theory that if that is actually happening, when the 'skin' of the other universes hit our 'skin' all hell would break loose and maybe destroy our whole universe. Hasn't happened yet so I am not going to lose much sleep over that idea😉