ANNUAL SUMMARY OF DARK MATTER AND DARK ENERGY

I sat down this morning to do my blog and could not think of a thing to say.  As this is Wednesday, sci-tech day for this site, I thought I'd do my yearly Dark Energy/Dark Matter summary, to determine if we are any closer to identifying what they really are.  

But first, about Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, some additional trouble is brewing.  Remarked Elon Musk:

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” the world’s richest man posted on X. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

Among those agreeing with Musk was a member of that first grouping, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who responded on social media: “I agree with Elon. We have both seen the massive waste in government spending, and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake. We can and must do better.”

Mind you, a week ago I indicated that there is too much concern about our national debt.  But, as indicated in that posting, Musk is worried, and he has a lot more credibility on this matter than me.  Further:

Having only slipped through the House of Representatives by the narrowest of margins on May 22, it now faces a treacherous path through the upper chamber, with Republican fiscal hawks, MAGA populists, and moderates alike raising objections to different aspects of its tax and spending provisions.

So about these two space mysteries, I watched two videos, both released earlier this year, a week apart.

• More evidence for Dark Energy changing with time, featuring Becky Smethurst of the University of Oxford, 32 minutes long.
• New Dark Matter Theory, 11 minutes.

Simple physics, but beyond my comprehension.  So I reverted to something from Argonne National Laboratory:  Science 101--What are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?  Less than 5 minutes.  What did this video reveal?  Well, nothing, except that they admit they know so little.  Thus, to summarize what most of you know:

• One thing that immediately strikes you is that the percentages shown in these pie charts are not uniform, but it seems inconceivable that there are more than 20 times more stuff out there that we know nothing much about.  Here is one comparison:

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  We only see 4.9% of what is around us.  These dark things are also there, except you can't confirm them.  You think religion is made of folk tales?  Cosmology is similarly soft.

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  Further, there are other points of view.
• Last year, the University of Ottawa revealed research that suggested our universe has no dark matter.
• Way back in 2019, this video said dark energy might not exist after all.
• Is there any real world value to research on dark energy and matter?  Well, you can read this article.  Doesn't look like much.

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  So how much money is annually spent on this research?  Said Google AI Overview:

While there's no single, publicly available figure for the exact annual spending on dark matter and dark energy research, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) allocates significant funding to related research areas. For example, the DOE announced $75 million in funding for 66 university research awards related to high-energy physics, including dark matter and dark energy, in 2019. In addition, the DOE anticipated allocating up to $3 million in FY 2019 for a program focused on developing project designs for dark matter and dark energy research, with a total of $24 million anticipated over a four-year period. 

What about the White House?

Yes, the Trump administration has been involved in efforts to cut funding for scientific research, and this has potentially impacted dark energy and dark matter research. 

Other countries, too, are involved:

China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE):

• China's DAMPE mission is designed to indirectly detect weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a hypothetical dark matter candidate.
• It seeks a signal from the decay of WIMPs, which are thought to make up a significant portion of dark matter. 

International Collaborations:

• The Dark Energy Survey is a large international collaboration that utilizes the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco Telescope in Chile to study the night sky. 
• This survey aims to precisely map the distribution of galaxies and measure the effects of dark energy on the expansion of the universe. 
• Funding for the DES project comes from various countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and Spain. 

Other Notable Research:

• A European space telescope, Euclid, is designed to study dark energy and map the distribution of galaxies and clusters, helping scientists understand the effects of dark energy on the universe's expansion. 

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  Scientists from around the world are using networks of magnetometers, like GNOME, to search for dark matter, with magnetometers distributed in countries like Germany, Serbia, and South Korea. 
• Lund University in Sweden is developing new techniques to analyze large datasets from experiments like CERN to search for clues about dark matter. 
• Researchers in the UK, including those at STFC RAL Space and Imperial College London, are investigating the possibility that black holes could be a source of dark energy. 

Can't end like that.  So one more bit of news.  The Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, started today.  Will go on until June 9.  Weather?  Up to 103F today, but will rise to as high as 111F over the next few days.  Last year, around 1300 pilgrims died of the heat.  But the temperature in 2024 maxed at 125F.  Global warming is making this too much of an ordeal. The Hajj is determined by the lunar calendar, and will shift to the spring and winter from next year to 2041.  2042 will be especially concerning, for the Hajj will occur in the middle of summer!

Not an ideal conclusion for this posting, so what about something entertaining?  America's Got Talent is now in its 20th year.  Here are the three golden buzzer performances so far:

• Jourdan Blue from Howie Mandel.
• Light Wire from Simon Cowell.
• Messoudi Brothers from Mel B.

Amanda Badertscher, a phy. ed. teacher tosses footballs.  No pro quarterback could have repeated what she did last night.  You got to watch this!

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