On and on he goes.....

Dark Stuff

So, having watched a couple of shows on TV this week I now consider myself a bit of an expert. Maybe.

This is what I've learnt.

The Big Bang creation of the Universe it not quite as it seems.

If there had been a massive and simple Big Bang, then the Universe would not be so ordered and space would not be roughly the same temperature throughout. So, there was indeed a Big Bang, which lasted a few millionths of a second, then a pause, for another few millionths, and then a rapid and uniform expansion (like a balloon blowing up) again for a few millionths of a second.

And the Universe has been expanding ever since, but much more slowly - but way faster than I can run!

However, we have more problems. Galaxies should not really exist, if you look at their mass and speed of rotation. They would fling stars and matter out of their lovely spiral shape. There must be something holding them together creating extra gravity to keep them all in shape. And that extra 'stuff' is called Dark Matter. Called 'dark' because we can't see it, have no way of detecting it, have no idea what it is. We just know that there must be 5 times more Dark Matter per galaxy than matter we can actual see.

Another problem, the rate of expansion of the Universe should be slowing down, because of the gravity of all the 'stuff' in the Universe. The stuff or 'matter' (galaxies, stars and planets) has gravity and eventually the pull of gravity should begin to overcome the energy created by the Big Bang and reign the expansion back in.

But it's not happening. In fact the rate of expansion of the Universe seems to be speeding up. Added to this, something is holding the Universe into a relatively flat shape as it expands.

How can this be? Well, there's some additional 'energy' in the Universe that is causing this effect. This energy is called Dark Energy. Again, we can't detect or observe it, yet.

I wonder what the implications are of the Universe expanding at an accelerating rate?

But the final thing I learnt is even more perplexing. Dark Flow.

Dark Flow describes a strange observation that shows that galaxies in certain parts of the Universe are flowing or moving or coming together at certain points. Almost as if something 'outside' of the Universe is attracting them, or perhaps even something massive 'inside' the Universe. Personally I like the something 'outside' theory. But what is it? Another Universe maybe ?

Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Dark Flow. Whatever you think of them, observable matter in the known Universe accounts for less than 1% of the matter/energy that must be present to make the Universe possible.

I suspect in a few days I will have forgotten my expert knowledge, or else the theories will be superseded.