

The Dark Matter Data Bonanza - terio
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26861/?p1=blogs

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GregBuchholz
I wonder if it is related to:

"Evidence for Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and Earth-Sun Distance"

<http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283>

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VladRussian
>As the Sun moves through the galaxy, it must also be moving through a sea of
dark matter. And as the Earth moves around the Sun, it will plough more
quickly into the sea of dark matter at some times of the year and at other
times more slowly.

sounds like the old idea of aether and absolute frame of reference is back
(after all, considering that Michelson-Morley experiment "proved" Special
Relativity without being calibrated using the SR/Lorenz rules it proved ...
That would explain why the NASA, astronomers and everybody else starting at
specific level of precision and/or scale in the space adjust their
measurements/results/formulas for about 200-300km/s in one specific direction
:)

> Sun... it must also be moving through a sea of dark matter.

So, what we have here - the "dark matter" isn't rotating together with Sun and
the rest of the Milky Way's Orion arm around the Milky Way's core. Hmmmm,
gravitationally interacting yet not enough to rotate together. Once we
consider the Milky Way's movement through the Universe - we come to 2
alternatives - either the dark matter tags alone, (yet not rotates ?! - then
what force makes it to tag alone?), or the "dark matter" is just uniformly
spread around in the Universe - nice absolute frame of reference and new
aether.

>...peaking in late April or early May

At January the Earth orbit movement is codirected with our Sun's and Orion
arm's rotation path around the Milky Way's core, and late April we actually
crossing it in the direction outward of the core. Explaining the above
"peaking" effect by dark matter, we would need to allow that Sun has speed
relative to the dark matter which is directed toward or outward of the galaxy
core and which absolute value is comparable with the Earth orbit speed. Either
Sun moves that way relative to the core, or the dark matter is moving in
direction toward or outward of our galactic core.

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hardtke
I should mention that one of the primary authors on the Cogent paper is a YC
alum, Mike Miller, Cloudant (YC 07) Founder.

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ubercore
Non-physicist here. If the modulation is annual, does that imply that the Dark
Matter they're detecting is stationary, relative to the Sun (meaning it orbits
the Milky Way on the same path as our Sun)?

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patrickyeon
That's possible. It's also possible that it does not rotate in the Milky Way
at all. Earth would still be passing through it faster for the part of the
year where our rotation around the sun has us going at a faster velocity
around the center of the galaxy.

If it helps, think of your car's tire as you drive down the road at speed v.
The part of the tire that touches the road at any instant has no speed
(relative to the road), and the opposite point on the tire is travelling at
2*v (still relative to the road).

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ubercore
Ahh, right. Thanks for clarification.

