“It’s a little weird in current dark matter models..”

Milky Way Dark Matter SurveyWe might not know exactly what dark matter is yet, although the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator is the most likely experiment to provide evidence for the answer to that question, but we can still see the effects of its existence.

What came out is what Dr [David] Law described as a “cosmic beach ball, squashed from the side”, flattened along the direction corresponding to the plane of the Milky Way. The fact that the un-flattened direction should be above and below the galactic plane remains a mystery. “It’s a little weird in current dark matter models, but it’ll be very useful in helping constrain future models, not only of dark matter itself but also how galaxies such as our own form in the universe.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.