Dark Energy in the Cosmos

[archive_Mr. Nobody]

http://snap.lbl.gov/brochure/

Fonz or anybody, do you have any ideas?

Disclaimer:
Mr. Nobody is presenting fictitious opinions and does in no way, shape or form encourage, use nor condone the use of any illegal substances or the use of legal substances in an illegal manner.
The information discussed is strictly for entertainment purposes only and shall not take the place of qualified medical advice.

[South of the border]

Read it.

It probably means that a massive alien invasion is to be expected in the near future...

[archive_Flash]

I had an idea once. http://www.anabolicfitness.net/smileys/idea.gif

then I lost it...

Oh, you mean on dark energy?

I have no idea what it is, only that this is supposed to be the stuff that fills in the gaps (anomolies?) for some crazy cosmic equations. From what I understood before reading this was that if there were enough dark matter, then the expansion of the universe would slow, then recoil, with the repeated big bang cycle and such, but if it were too little dark energy then there would be a "big chill" and the universe would just slow down to 0K.

Maybe this dark energy would be a good alternate fuel for the Bush administration to look into, right after good intentions and chocolate http://anabolicfitness.infopop.net/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Kinnish]

I just finished taking Astronomy last semester and a good deal of notes related to dark energy and dark matter despite scientists not really knowing much about them....

what we do know (dark matter):

-90% of the mass in our galaxy is NOT in the form of stars

-this mass is distributed throughout the halo, roughly in a sphere shape...(the halo is the portion of our galaxy outside of the "disk" where our solar system is)

-no one knows what it is, but they do know what it ISN'T: it's NOT stars b/c it doesn't glow, NOT gas b/c it doesn't generate a color spectrum, and it's NOT dust b/c it doesn't obscure objects beyond it and it isn't visible in infrared

what we know about Dark energy:

-Einstein stated, according to General Relativity, that NOT all types of things have attractive gravity---anything that has repulsive gravity is dark energy

-according to particle physics (my professor's specialty), even empty space has energy associated with it...

-as the universe expands (which it undoubtedly does), this energy does NOT dissipate or thin out

Point being, when you add up all the stuff within the universe (stars, gas, dark matter, dark energy) it will equal Omega and if Omega is equal to or less than 1, then the universe is infinite as many scientists believe....

I hope that was somewhat easy to follow...

-Kinnish