Measurements by the Gaia Space Telescope show anomalies that apparently cannot be explained by dark matter alone. On the other hand, another model that does not use them at all gives better results.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity currently serves as the basis for astrophysics, but some observations do not agree with it. A popular solution to this problem is dark matter, which is said to interact with gravity but be invisible at the same time. However, this model is now being called into question by measurement data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope.
AQUAL is right
The impetus for this assumption is the work of South Korean physicist Kyu Hyun Chae. In examining 26,500 binaries recorded with Gaia, he discovered a bias that could not be explained by the classical model based on Netwon and Einstein. At weak gravitational accelerations of less than 1 nm/s², the traditional calculations are no longer correct, but increasingly lead to larger errors. Allegedly, these cannot be explained by dark matter.
“The gravitational anomaly found in this study has many profound implications for theoretical physics and cosmology.
First of all, the gravitational anomalies in the dynamics of binary stars cannot be attributed to dark matter, because the amount required is absurd, and thus there is no way to save the standard gravitational theory. Since Newtonian dynamics breaks down at low acceleration, Einstein’s general theory of relativity must also fail in this area.”
At the same time, the paper also provides a solution: AQUAL modelshort for “Quadratic Lagrange“, aims to correctly predict deviations. This theory, in turn, is based on Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), which was proposed by Mordehau Milgrom in 1983 as an alternative to the dark matter concept, but has not established itself as a standard. However, this approach appears to be supported by the new measurement results.
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Publication of the results should lead to extensive discussions and testing among astrophysicists about the validity of the AQUAL model with the provided measurement data and other data and provide better results than the dark matter approach. If one theory is replaced by the other, the discovery could be considered a breakthrough that could allow for more accurate data about the universe in the future.
Source: via hot / Frankfurter Rundschau
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