Latest Calculations Show Dark Matter May Form Solar Flares
Change in plans everyone—it seems that the latest calculations regarding solar flares suggest they may be caused by axions—hot particles of dark matter erupting from the Sun’s center. Previously solar flares were considered as a sudden change in the brightness of the Sun—and they still are—but it is also being suggested that dark matter could also be the culprit. This may be, and with the quality of sophisticated equipment being used anymore, the truth will “come to light’ eventually.
It seems that dark matter is made up of axions, those theoretical particles whose existence was theorized that it was created during the Big Bang—you know, the one that Kansas schools were fighting over against the evolution scene. Anyway, CAST has been developed under the CERN Axion Solar Telescope program to search for axions which are thought to originate from the Sun. Their experiment went into full play last May of 2003 when its first data-taking run began, with the guys taking it online in 2002.
What is known is they are thought to be produced within the core of the Sun, when X-rays begin to “scatter off electrons and protons”, due to nearby electrical fields. With the axions originally proposed in 1970 as a better way to understand why matter forms most of our universe as compared to antimatter, they were predicted by physicists to have certain specific traits. For example, “…the flares’ X-ray photons were expected to travel radially outwards from the Sun.”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under Space Agency News, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
