Posted by cougar on Nov 14, 2002 at 12:40
(63.228.205.209)
Re: Dark matter (Dogrock)
As Morgan says, dark matter is not causing the accelerating expansion. That's been attributed to "dark energy" or the cosmological constant or "quintessence."
Whatever you call it, the effect is very, very slight, and as you say, it's only detectable on the hugest of scales, like when viewing distant galaxies. Even within our own galaxy - with a disk diameter of roughly 90,000 light years, The effect of the expansion of space (which is much greater than that minute portion causing the expansion to accelerate) is completely swamped by "local" gravitational effects. We detect no expansion within our galaxy, so no, the effect of expansion on our atoms and molecules is completely negligible.
Re: A few pointers. Andy™ 16/11 10:25
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