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Dante2005 t1_iwwqhjf wrote

Reply to comment by grrrrreat in Dark Matter as an Intergalactic Heat Source. Spectra from quasars suggest that intergalactic gas may have been heated by a form of dark matter called dark photons. by MistWeaver80

"Dark" was always the word for "unknown" or "unproven" so you are not wrong entirely.

If you can see that something affects another thing, but you cant see how exactly or why...call it dark and wait for more data.

Science can only work with the data it has.

It is not trying to be obscure, there are just something's that there are no answers too quite yet.

But data can be extrapolated, like how oddly the universe is speeding up in its expansion.

We will get there.

EDIT: I just saw the sub reddit that I am on. if you need me to delete this comment I fully understand.

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TheRidgeAndTheLadder t1_iwx1skv wrote

Is it controversial to say dark matter is an unknown for science?

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stouset t1_iwy2go0 wrote

Sort of.

We have a lot of data that requires something like dark matter to exist. There’s a bunch of matter, and it moves in a way that requires way more matter than what we can see. We can detect gravitational effects pretty much everywhere that greatly exceed what we’d expect from the matter we detect. We can detect this so well that we have intergalactic maps of where this extra matter must be.

We just… don’t know what it is. We’ve basically ruled out all the stuff that we know about. And problematically, everything at small scales like what we deal with in the solar system seems within what we’d expect with normal matter. But when we look farther out, stuff acts like there’s way more gravity than there otherwise should be.

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makingthegreatest t1_iwx7q6y wrote

Everything is unknown to an extent. Dark matter however has been known to humans for decades (nearly century) but there are unknowns to it (:

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TheRidgeAndTheLadder t1_iwx9ysp wrote

Sure, but there are alternate theories that are compatible with experiments into the modern day.

We don't know for sure that dark matter is a thing because we don't know for sure our model is relevant in that area.

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mouse1093 t1_iwxtr68 wrote

No, not controversial at all. Dark matter is one prevailing theory that explains a number of odd phenomenon and observations that standard cosmology gets wrong. Things like the spin rate of galaxies is an example. There may be other explanations that fix this problem (say perhaps super gravity) but none have been any more confirmed that the others.

Dark matter is also unknown in the sense that other than prescription of what it should be, we don't what it actually is. None of our current particles fit the bill and the theoretical particles we've thought could work haven't shown themselves in any tests to make them.

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SouthEasternGuy t1_iwyko07 wrote

Dark matter is basically the name specifically for the stuff that is having gravitational effects on things but that they can’t attribute to a proper source. It happens A LOT so they just call it dark matter.

It’s not controversial by any means, it’s specifically an unknown

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echoAwooo t1_iwyegq5 wrote

Nope. We aren't even sure it's there, we're just pretty sure.

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Bakkster t1_iwx941i wrote

>"Dark" was always the word for "unknown" or "unproven" so you are not wrong entirely.

I thought it was more specifically dark as in didn't absorb reflect or emit light or other reflective radiation, unlike cosmic dust and stars. We just see the gravitational lensing as if it were a dense cloud of dust, but no dust.

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Dante2005 t1_iwx9qbj wrote

I hear you, but dark in that form that you mentioned was about black holes, and in this you were 100% correct.

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williemctell t1_ix083bh wrote

No, u/Bakkster is absolutely correct and this has ~nothing to do with black holes. Dark matter is “dark” because it doesn’t interact electromagnetically.

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