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From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: StarDate: September 16 Cold, Dark Matter
Message-ID: <724@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 02:00:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.724
Posted: Mon Sep 16 02:00:20 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 03:28:54 EDT
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 41


The galaxies may have arisen from cold, dark matter in the early
universe.  More -- after this.

September 16  Cold, Dark Matter

Yesterday we talked about the Big Bang -- the cataclysmic explosion
that marked the birth of our universe.  The idea of the Big Bang has
been discussed and explored for about two decades -- but only in a
general way -- since it has been hard to gather observational evidence
about the birth of the universe.

But since light travels at a finite speed, our telescopes are like time
machines that let us look into the distant past.  And advancing
technology is letting astronomers look farther away in space -- and
farther back in time -- closer to the birth of the universe.  Now the
specifics of the Big Bang theory can begin to be speculated on -- and
more detailed theories about the very early universe are being
devised.

A recent popular theory explores the reason that matter in the universe
came together to form galaxies -- huge islands of stars that are the
major structures in the universe.  Cosmologists propose that the early
universe was filled with what they call "cold, dark matter" -- stuff
unlike the ordinary matter around us here on Earth, or in the solar
system.  The cold, dark matter spread outward unevenly from the Big
Bang -- and formed "gravitational potholes" into which ordinary matter
fell and became trapped.  In this picture of the early universe, that's
how galaxies began to form.  Today it's possible that what's left of
the cold, dark matter still exists.  It may account for the so-called
missing mass -- the idea that a large fraction of the mass of the
universe appears to be completely invisible.


Script by Deborah Byrd.





(c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin


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