Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Dark energy vs matter
Dark energy vs matter
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Dark energy vs matter
When the average person hears the terms dark matter or dark energy, they probably do not truly appreciate the complexity and scope of the concepts involved. The terms dark matter and dark energy tend to obscure the high level of uncertainty that currently plagues researchers involved in these areas of study. However, before people can even begin to really understand these ideas, they must first acquire a basic understanding of the nature and scope of the universe, at least as much is possible for the human mind. The cosmological scale of the universe is so much larger than we as human beings can hope to comprehend in an intuitive manner. To gain an appreciation of this scale, consider the following, the average human being is about 1.7 m …show more content…
The diameter of our Sun, into which about one million Earths could fit, is about 1,400,000 km, or about 1.4x109 m (Huang, 2010). The largest star currently known to humans, VY Canis Majoris, has a diameter of about 3 billion kilometers, or about 3x1012 m (Huang, 2010). The Oort cloud of our solar system, the barrier of debris at the extreme limit of our Sun’s gravitational influence, is believed to have an outer diameter of about 1.5 trillion kilometers, or about 1.5x1015 m, this is also about 0.15 light years (Huang, 2010). The light year is a unit of measure based on how far light travels in one year, in a vacuum. The nearest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is about 4.3 light years away, or about 4.5x1016 m (Huang, 2010). The Milky Way Galaxy, our home galaxy, is believed to have a diameter of about 120,000 light years, or 1.2x1021 m (Huang, 2010). The Local Galactic Supercluster of galaxies is believed to have a diameter of about 150,000,000 light years, or about 1.5x1024 m (Huang, 2010). The diameter of the observable universe is believed to be about 14 billion light years, actually …show more content…
Consider the fact that there even is a rigorous debate about such concepts. This indicates that our current understanding of the nature of the universe is incorrect. Namely, our current explanations of physics on a cosmological scale, specifically pertaining to gravity, are somehow incomplete and/or lacking. A more complete understanding of these concepts will either expose erroneous concepts currently held as truth, or add to humanity’s current understanding of the nature of the cosmos, or both. Along the way, the scientific process of research and investigation will yield insights that will undoubtedly have unforeseeable influences on our society. Questions will likely be addressed in disciplines ranging from philosophy and religion, i.e., the nature of the origins of the universe and of existence, all the way to modern computing and optics technology, e.g., the new technologies being developed to make research into these areas of cosmology and astronomy possible that will likely benefit society at large through technological innovation and advancement. For these reasons alone, it is clear that there is much to be gained from research into dark matter and energy. Further, an understanding of the nature of the universe from a cosmological perspective requires an in depth analysis of the collective nature of dark matter and dark energy. The following analysis will provide a look into the current research of these subjects
In Alan Lightman’s, “Our Place in the Universe,” he describes his experiences in the Greek Isles explaining how meek it made him feel to be surrounded by the vast ocean with no land in sight except a small strip of brown in the distance. Great thinkers throughout history, have been exploring the visible variety of shapes, colors, and sizes, though the greatest of these are size, from the smallest atom to gargantuan stars. These massive differences in size change the way we view ourselves in the universe. (470) Garth Illingworth, from the University of California, has studied galaxies more than 13 billion light years away from us.
In the last hundred years we have made enormous progress in studying not our galaxy but ones billions of light-years away. Only a few hundred years ago our world seemed so big that there were areas of the world that had never been charted and people believed that the Earth was flat (and yes for some reason a few people still believe that today). If we continue to make progress at thus rate the universe will actually begin to seem smaller because of how much more we might know.
Dark matter was first proposed by a man named Fitz Zwicky, who was observing a galaxy cluster, and noticed it was much more massive than to be expected, considering the cluster’s luminosity. Zwicky proposed something that he could not see was there, causing this; he dubbed this dark matter. However, Zwicky was ridiculed for this idea. In the 1960s, Kent Ford designed what is now called a spectrograph, a device that disperses electromagnetic radiation, making the radiation visible to the user. This innovation allowed Ford and Vera Rubin to observe the orbital speeds of stars and gases in galaxies from different distances from the central black hole of that galaxy. When doing so, Rubin observed that the Newtonian laws of gravity. The stars closer to the black hole should have been orbiting it at a more accelerated pace than the stars farther away, although this was not happening. Rubin then lead a team of astronomers to observe many galaxies, and in their observations, they noticed that the galaxies evidently had a form of invisible mass at work. The research team discovered spirals encapsulated in what appears to be dark matter. The mass of dark matter is believed to be far greater than the mass of visible matter in the universe. Dark matter is called dark matter for the reason that it does not appear to interact with regular matter in any form,
Hawking, Stephen. “Our Picture of the Universe.” Fields of Reading. 6th ed. Ed. Nancy R. Comely et al. New York: St. Martin’s, 2001. (565-574)
Despite all our advances in particle physics and astrophysics, we still don't know what form of matter makes up 95% of the universe. Physicists have named this mysterious substance dark matter, for it can not be detected by observation (it does not emit visible or other frequency light waves). However, we know that dark matter must exist, following Newton's universal law of gravity.
For over a hundred years now a battle has been raging over the origin of the Universe and man. Soldiers of Science have drawn the battle lines with each side using various scientific and non - scientific theories as their weapons.
An underlying theme present throughout the series is the possibility that our existence is not the only one. According to current theories in physics, it is entirely possible that our universe is just one of many universes f...
The number of theories surrounding how the universe materialized is nearly endless, but Krauss’ thesis is one of the most convincing and buttressed that has been proposed. Lawrence Krauss is one of the most well respected theoretical physicists and cosmologists in America and has done extensive research on how and why the universe is in existence. Like the title of his book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, his entire theory surrounds the fact the universe was created from nothing. In support of his argument, he explores the weight and shape of the universe, dark matter and energy, quantum mechanics, visual particles, and expansion rates. While the world may never know exactly how the universe was created, society is getting closer to figuring it out and Krauss may have been the one to figure it out.
A galaxy, also called a nebula, consists of billions of stars, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter which are all bound to form a massive cloud in which we live in. Although it cannot be very well explained, dark matter makes up at least 90% of a galaxy’s mass. Galaxies also contain billions upon billions of stars and their diameter can range from 1,500 to 300,000 light years. That’s huge! The Milky Way, the galaxy in which we live in, is one of about 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Our Sun is one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, and our eight planets revolve around this star in only a tiny part of our galaxy. “The Earth’s solar system is believed to exist very close to the Galaxy’s galactic plane, due to the fact that the Milky Way essentially divides the night sky into two virtually equal hemispheres” ("All About the Milky"). It definitely makes people second guess the fact of there being life on other planets.
...t is that human reasoning abilities have allowed mankind to develop a virtual telescope far beyond the reach of our newest space viewing technologies. With this theory, humans come closer to realizing our place within the multiverse and the uniqueness of our own universe. The conflicting ideas, though difficult to prove one way or another, provide an impetus that will stimulate further research into this field, opening new doors and potentially useful technologies that could further humans’ understanding of everything on which our knowledge rests.
The universe, it's vastness, how it was created, and why we are a part of it amazes and astounds many people who are constantly searching for answers. Others believe they have the answers and try to persuade people to understand their view. Others don't even think about it at all.
The Universe is a collection of millions of galaxies and extends beyond human imagination. After the big bang, the universe was found to be composed of radiation and subatomic particles. Information following big bang is arguable on how galaxies formed, that is whether small particles merged to form clusters and eventually galaxies or whether the universe systematized as immense clumps of matter that later fragmented into galaxies (Nasa World book, 2013). A galaxy is a massive area of empty space full of dust, gases (mainly 75% Hydrogen and 25%Helium), atoms, about 100-200 billion stars, interstellar clouds and planets, attracted to the center by gravitational force of attraction. Based on recent research, 170 billion galaxies have been estimated to exist, with only tens of thousands been discovered (Deutsch, 2011).
This is probably the greatest discovery imaginable; however, the universe still seems to be a very controversial subject.
Kuhn illustrates that the universe was the perfect dilemma for natural philosophers and ordinary people to ponder, because the planetary motions and the everyday occurrences of the sky had an enormous impact on daily life. People were no longer satisfied with the supernatural explanations concerning the universe, and began to question what the heavens were actually made of, why some stars seemed brighter then others, and what it all meant. Many theories were proposed as to what the heavens actually consisted of, and those theories could be examined, argued, and rejected, establishing the first of many conceptual schemes to come. Kuhn states of his book that "much of this book will be concerned with the fruitfulness of particular conceptual schemes, that is, with their effectiveness as guides for research as frameworks for the organization of knowledge."