A dark matter "hurricane" is colliding with Earth
You may have heard about the enigmatic dark matter, right? It is one of the greatest mysteries of physics today, as scientists know that dark matter exists - its gravitational force and its interaction with ordinary matter in the universe can be measured - but no one can explain what exactly it is. she is composed, not even as she is formed.
For, according to the researchers, there is a dark matter hurricane coming our way right now and is expected to reach Earth at an absurd 500 km / s. And we mere earthlings - and laymen - should we worry about the arrival of this whirlwind of unknown matter here? Scientists say no, but it's always good to try to understand what we've been coming around for!
Unique opportunity
In fact, what scientists have identified is a large stellar flow from a dwarf galaxy that was destroyed by the gravitational force of the Milky Way - and has been “dragging” a large amount of dark hitchhiking material. As we mentioned above, the influence of dark matter can be measured, but it cannot be directly perceived by us, so according to the researchers, its arrival here will not affect us at all.
Incidentally, such a stellar flow itself is not of concern to the planet's inhabitants either, which means that it will not be this time the world will end, no. But still, the news that the hurricane is coming has caused a stir among the scientific community, as it will offer researchers a unique opportunity to detect and study dark matter - and try to unravel at least some of its mysteries.
Hurricane of Mysteries
Who identified the flow was a team of scientists from the University of Zaragoza, Spain, King's College, London, and the Institute of Astronomy of the United Kingdom, about 1 year ago, from data collected from the Gaia space satellite., of the European Space Agency. The flow was associated with a small galaxy of about 30, 000 stars orbiting the Milky Way around 1 billion years ago, but was eventually destroyed by the gravity exerted by our cosmic address.
Over the years, astronomers from around the world have observed about 30 such streams in the cosmos, but this is the first time that one of them has come just in the direction of the Solar System and meeting Earth.
About how the researchers intend to detect dark matter, among the alternatives, use devices around the planet to measure what astronomers call WIMP - Weakly Interacting Massive Particles or massively weakly interacting particles - or the axions (an elementary particle). hypothetical), both considered as possible dark matter components.
In fact, scientists are betting more chips on the apes, as previous studies and models have shown that, in addition to these particles being easier to detect than WIMPs, predictions show that they appear to be better candidates for composing dark matter. We will see (or not!) ...
In any case, the excitement of the scientists is due to the fact that, according to the latest models, 25% of the universe would be made up of dark matter - this thing that nobody sees, that nobody can play with, and that nobody know where it comes from!
We are probably immersed in dark matter all the time without knowing it - and the interesting thing is that, according to physicists, only 5% of the cosmos would be composed of ordinary matter. And the remaining 70%? Well, these would correspond to dark energy, something even more mysterious and whose presence has been suggested to explain the expansion of the universe. And the detection of this was not even considered by researchers now!
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