Scientists in the Dark on Dark Matter & Dark Energy

Researchers race to shed light on the incredible energy in our Cosmos

TERRA RESEARCH
April 4, 2007
Larry A. Park

What is Dark Matter and Energy?

Hubble Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) - ESA/Hubble Collaboration

Considered by Scientists as the two greatest mysteries in the cosmos, Dark Matter and Dark Energy pose vexing problems to our modern physics models. Not only does modern physics fail in explaining Dark Energy and Dark Matter, the models can only explain four percent of our universe – the visible part. The invisible part, or the “Dark” part, makes up the vast majority of our universe – up to a mind boggling 96%. How was this missed? Some scientists call this massive discrepancy as “embarrassing”. However, the answers to Dark Energy can change our world overnight as this energy is real and it exists silently all around us.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy: One and the Same?
By Robert Roy Britt
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040712.html

“Dark matter and dark energy are two of the most vexing problems in science today. Together they dominate the universe, comprising some 96 percent of all mass and energy.”

“'Embarrassing'

"It is somewhat embarrassing to have two different unknown sources for the dominant forms of matter and energy in the universe," he said in an e-mail interview. "On the other hand, that may just be the way things are. We don't get to pick the universe we live in."

“To explain it all in one fell swoop, Scherrer invokes an exotic form of energy called a scalar field. It's a bit like an electric or magnetic field, with energy and pressure and a magnitude. But a scalar field has no direction. A scalar field is thought to have been behind inflation, the less-than-a-second period after the Big Bang when the universe expanded many billions of times before settling into a more reasonable rate of growth.”

Dark Energy is estimated to make up seventy-five percent of the unseen universe. Dark Matter is estimated at twenty-one percent. The existence of so much dark energy permeating every square inch of our world is a perplexing implication to our modern physics. Physicists refer to Dark Energy as one of the 5 Great Cosmic Mysteries. Astronomers openly comment that scientists are ‘clueless’ about the nature of Dark Energy.

Dark Energy: Astronomers Still 'Clueless' About Mystery Force Pushing Galaxies Apart
By Andrew Chaikin
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/cosmic_darknrg_020115-1.html

“It sounds like something out of a Star Trek episode: Dark energy, a mysterious force that no one understands, is causing the universe to fly apart faster and faster. Only a few years ago, if you'd suggested something like that to astronomers, they would have told you to spend less time in front of the TV and more time in the "real" world.”

“But dark energy is real or at least, a growing number of astronomers think it is. No one, however, can truly explain it.

"Frankly, we just don’t understand it," says Craig Hogan, an astronomer at the University of Washington at Seattle. "We know what its effects are," Hogan says, but as to the details of dark energy, "Were completely clueless about that. And everybody’s clueless about it."

Dark energy entered the astronomical scene in 1998, after two groups of astronomers made a survey of exploding stars, or supernovas, in a number of distant galaxies. These researchers found that the supernovas were dimmer than they should have been, and that meant they were farther away than they should have been. The only way for that to happen, the astronomers realized, was if the expansion of the universe had sped up at some time in the past.”

Today, researchers are spending millions of dollars to seek answers to the Dark Energy and Dark Matter questions. European collaborative research projects total over 6.5 million Euros or near $8.68 million dollars. In the United States, NASA is in the process of evaluating proposed space missions to probe Dark Energy as part of NASA’s and the Department of Energy’s Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM). Three of these proposed space missions are called ADEPT for Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope, SuperNova/acceleration probe (SNAP), and Dark Energy Space Telescope (DESTINY).

Fill ‘er up with Premium Dark Energy please..

Could Dark Energy be the answer to Clean Energy for our world? Yes it is possible. Not many have made this link, but the quick answer to this question relies on laboratory research. Physicists have been aware of a tremendous energy that exists as a ‘quantum foam’ in the sub-atomic particle physics world. It’s everywhere. This energy is called Zero-Point Energy (ZPE) or Zero-Point fluctuations.

Could dark energy be studied in the lab?
By Belle Dumé
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/6/17

“It might be possible to measure the properties of "dark energy" in the laboratory according to physicists in the UK and Canada. A relatively simple experiment based on superconducting devices known as Josephson junctions could show if some or all of the dark energy in the universe is due to quantum fluctuations of the vacuum (C Beck and M Mackey 2004 arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0406504).“

Why Dark Energy or ZPE research is so important

If this energy can be tapped, how much energy is there? Some researchers indicate that a small ‘engine size’ motor type device can provide enough power for a small car – with no need for gasoline. On top of this, if all of the cars in the world operated for one day, each with this type of device, it would not scratch the surface of the amount of energy found inside the volume of a small sugar cube.

A Our energy dependency could be shifted dramatically to a clean supply at the same time eliminating a vast amount of exhaust pollutants. This potential low-cost energy could directly benefit low income households throughout the United States and can mitigate community services needs such as Low Income Energy Assistance programs for households to live day to day. There are a multitude of benefits that a low-cost energy source could provide to everyone. The key to unlocking this potential is research.