Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Darkness

I am very interested in science. I actually like reading articles relating to astronomy and the creation of the universe. Yes, I am a Christian who believes in science! God is a lot smarter than we give him credit. He actually understands the theory of relativity far better than Einstein did when HE told it to Einstein! And since time was created as a plaything for man and means absolutely nothing to God, he isn’t all tied up in controversy about how long it took to create the universe. I like that about him. We can talk.

Today, I ran across this article on my MSN home page New Cosmic Theory Unites Dark Forces. It drew me in and I am glad it did.  “A new theory says that dark matter and dark energy could arise from a single dark fluid that permeates the whole universe.” © 2007 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

I ended up reading several articles on the topic. It is fascinating reading if you understand basic astronomy and a general idea of the dark matter theories.  If you don’t, by the time you read them you probably will have a fair grasp of the subject. It gave me quite a lot of food for thought that, since I am a Southern woman whose culture says food should be shared, I thought I’d share.

A lady once told me that we can find truth anywhere. You just have to look for it. I learned this to be true. If you don’t search, you won’t find. Searching requires that you question everything and everyone. Science is all about questions but Christians are discouraged from asking questions. To us, questions signify doubt. To question God would be doubt and doubt is sin. I know, we're nuts a lot of the time. I lost my fear of asking God questions when he started answering them.

Sadly, there is such enmity between scientist and Christians that I doubt it will ever be resolved but both camps are right about some things. You notice I didn’t say between science and Christianity? It’s people who have the problem. The biggest problem is they both want to be right about everything. That’s impossible.

So, I read, I study, I ponder things not many women my age and background study. I allow myself to question and let those questions percolate. Then I ask God, “What about this? Is this possible?” He usually grins and says, “Anything is possible.”

I’ve spent the last couple of hours reading these articles and formulating questions and tossing out a few of my own. The conclusion I arrived at is surprising. . . to me, anyway. I’ve provided several excerpts from three articles that will reveal my discovery. The links will take you to the articles themselves.

The above article describes dark matter and dark energy: “Dark matter, as originally hypothesized, is extra hidden mass that astrophysicists calculate is necessary for holding together fast-turning galaxies. . . . seems to be everywhere, acting as a scaffolding for galaxy clusters and the whole structure of the universe.” In other words, everything that exists is suspended from this structure.

“On the other hand, dark energy is needed to explain the more recently-discovered acceleration of the universe's expansion. . . . It supposedly exists all throughout space, delivering a pressure that counteracts gravity.”Gravity, remember, pushes against things. As I understand this, dark energy acts as a restraint on the effect of gravity. It sounded like cement to me. And what do you know, in the next article I found my confirmation.

In Dark Matter May Lurk Between Galaxies the scientist says, “Dark matter acts as gravitational glue, holding millions or billions of stars together in galactic globs or disks. Without it, "our own galaxy should have fallen apart by now," said Frederic Bournaud, an astrophysicist with the French Atomic Energy Commission. "So dark matter — this unseen force — is somewhere keeping it glued together.” © 2007 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

So how do they know this stuff exists? Who says it is even real? Can you see it? Can you feel it?

Well, in Dark Matter Mapped in 3-D Detail the scientist says: “Decades' worth of observations have found that all the matter we can see in surrounding galaxies doesn't account for the gravitational effects of those galaxies. In fact, there appears to be six times more dark matter out there than the ordinary matter we can see. . . . there is no picture of it and there's no known way to detect it directly.”

“Even though the matter itself couldn't be seen, astronomers detected its effect by analyzing the gravitational effect of that matter on light rays from more distant light sources.” © 2008 MSNBC Interactive

This had become positively religious! There is something out there, holding it all together that no one can see. I’ll insert a long pregnant pause here while you digest the ramifications of this.  It also means that while they can’t see it, they know it exists because they can see the effects of it on other visible things, like light.

Wow, a substance they can’t see but they believe MUST be there . . . something that holds the universe together.

Do you see it, too?

The final statement in this last article is brilliant and so powerful I am amazed. "Frankly speaking, these are just fancy words we use to name something we do not understand," he said. “If a simpler model (with a single word) can explain all the data, then cosmologists will gladly accept it,” Boehmer said.

A single word?

Uh. . . God?

And Boehmer was wrong. They never accept it.