New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Gravity theory dispenses with dark matter
OK now to cosmology. The story above is interesting in that it is about new work suggesting that its the theory of gravity itself which should be modified to explain the strange rotation of galaxies, rather than proposing that there is a huge amount of "dark matter" in the universe.
I had last year stumbled across another effort to deal with the problem this way (called the MOND theory, which is mentioned in the above story too.) It intuitively sounded to me a useful way to go.
The fact that the Pioneer spacecraft aren't travelling as they should also seems a big reason to question current theories of gravity, and this new theory apparently accounts for that anomoly adequately.
All sounds rather promising to me, and if the Pioneer spacecraft behaviour is a significant contributor to an overhall of the fundamental laws of physics, it will really confirm what space adovcates have argued for years - that part of the reason for doing it is for the unforeseen breakthroughs, as well as the more foreseeable one.
Time to start ordering the Australian hovercar?
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