Starship Asterisk*

In no uncertain terms can we use plasma as an explanation in lieu of DARK MATTER.

Once everyone accepts that Dark Matter exists, just like the human race had to learn that the earth wasn't the centre of the universe, just like they eventually had to accept Newtons Laws, and just like we had to accept Einstein's intense works and everyone gets back to doing whatever it is they do well, we'll be using DARK PLASMA to explain the discrepancies in the DARK MATTER Theory.

The more I think about this the more I become convinced that "gravity" is just an observed effect: It seems to me that the passage of time is being warped by the concentration of mass. This warping of space-time falls off over distance by a formula we may not yet fully grasp (if we did there'd be no debate about MOND). There is an acceleration toward a region in which time is slowed, and this is what we call gravity. Light travels more slowly through the region where time is slowed, and thus is bent toward the mass in a form of refraction.

That scientists think they understand gravity - or maybe we should call it the warping of space-time by mass - perfectly across such incredible distance and time as to extrapolate the existence of dark matter is worth questioning, IMO.

And even more basic... Do they really know the exact distance to these galaxy clusters (and thus the size), or the mass of the central black holes? There's a lot of theory being taken as a "given" here. What if an assumption is wrong? These things we're observing are (were) a long way - and a long TIME - from here. Did the universe function then on the same rules then as it does now? Change a given value to a variable and the ring may go away entirely. And why should we see a nice ring from here? Isn't that rather suspicious in itself?

And regarding MOND... At galactic distances matter interacts with other matter not instantaneously, but in a relativistic way (assuming the force of gravity travels at the speed of light). I'd say it's a tremendous oversimplification to model rotation of outlying galactic parts as though they were orbiting a fixed center of mass. Instead, the stuff is orbiting with other stuff that's also moving and causing its own space-time warp (gravity). One would have to visualize what each particle is experiencing at any given moment based on its own point of view - which isn't going to be anything like what we see at a distance!

It's pretty clear SOMETHING is still not fully understood!

-Noel