Local detection of dark matter with future missions to Uranus and Neptune

by ArtWomb • 4 years ago

59 21 4 years ago

scld• 4 years ago

Layman here: Does this mean that they'll launch orbiters around Neptune and Uranus and, by measuring the doppler shift in comms back to Earth against their simulations, determine if there's enough dark matter to be impacting the doppler shift?

goodcanadian2• 4 years ago

No, or not exactly. It appears to me that they are suggesting (or rather, modelling) using the doppler shift to precisely measure the trajectories of the spacecraft on the way to those planets in order to get a measurement of the gravitational field that is acting on them and thus a measurement of any dark matter that may be present.

rich_sasha3• 4 years ago

Hmm, but if we’re suspended in a homogeneous “soup” of Dark Matter, the surely such forces would cancel out?

Do we except Dark Matter to be distributed inhomogeneously around the Solar System? I thought it is only in homogenous at ~galactic scales.

Sporktacular3• 4 years ago

How do they propose differentiating the gravity due to normal matter from dark matter?

Baopab• 4 years ago

There's also a Cambridge study from ~1 year ago that could be the first direct detection of dark energy in an experimental dark matter detector. I can't seem to find it again though...

Sporktacular3• 4 years ago

Please link if you find it.

zionic• 4 years ago

This is random but I really want to get some high end instruments in geosynchronous orbit with Jupiter/one of the gas giants opposite the sun. Seems like the perfect place to get low-noise measurements.

krisoft• 4 years ago

It sounds more like what you are saying is you want instruments orbiting around the L2 lagrange point of the Jupiter-Sun system. Do I understand you right?

At first I was confused because the “geo” in geosycnronous means that the orbit is centered around the Earth. But you are talking about Jupiter, so I thought maybe you mean a “jovisyncronous” orbit? One orbiting around the Jupiter with the same orbital period the Jupiter rotates with. But then you also say opposite the sun, and that orbit would be on the opposite side from the Sun only some of the time (because Jupiter is not tidaly locked with the Sun). So my best guess now is that you mean L2.

What kind of measurement would you want to do there? And how would you get the results back to Earth?

waynecochran• 4 years ago

It's cool there is a "Code & Data" link for papers at arxiv (alas there is "No official code found" for this paper -- not that I expect there would be).

throwawayboise2• 4 years ago

Queue the jokes about studying dark matter on Uranus.

rich_sasha3• 4 years ago

I’ll stick to M’ars

Sharlin• 4 years ago

*cue. As in, a theatrical cue to enter the stage.

sdflhasjd• 4 years ago

No, this is the line for a queue of these jokes. ;p

throwawayboise2• 4 years ago

I wondered about that, I chose queue as in "line up the jokes"

Local detection of dark matter with future missions to Uranus and Neptune

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