Could dark matter be solar systems whose starlight has not reached earth yet?

Answer 1

No. Dark Matter is a scientific conclusion which arose from calculations trying to figure out the amount of matter throughout the universe. So, it's not like we see it and are confused at what it is...its more like we haven't seen it but we know it must be there, hence the nomenclature: dark.

Answer 2

Since dark matter is thought to exist in current visible galaxies, it would not be stars whose light has not reached us yet, since the light from the other starts in the galaxy has reached us. Dark matter is a term for as yet undiscovered particles, something completely new. There are experiments ongoing to attempt to detect these particles.

Answer 3

Well, it's good that you're thinking outside the box, but no, Dark Matter is much too powerful to consist merely of lightwaves, which is just photons. The Dark Matter is thought to be largely responsible for the increasingly rapid expansion of the Universe, and it was discovered, not as one answerer said, in an attempt to figure out mass in the Universe, but rather when our existing formulas for expansion--Hubble's Constant--proved insufficient to account for the velocities.

Answer 4

There is normal matter at the same distance, and even farther, that we can see. And it does not have to be starlight. Even interstellar dust and gas can be "seen" in infrared and radio wavelengths.

Answer 5

no because dark matter does not emit any light at all. you could wait for it to get here but it will never come lol. dark matter is something that doesnt give off any kind of radiation (including visible light) but is said to exist to explain certain celestial phenomena

Answer 6

You know! I think you are on to something! That is a very good possibility. So yes I agree with you.

Answer 7

In astrophysics, dark matter is matter that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation (such as light, X-rays and so on) to be detected directly, but whose presence may be inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter. Among the observed phenomena consistent with the existence of dark matter are the rotational speeds of galaxies and orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters, gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet cluster, and the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Dark matter also plays a central role in structure formation and Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and has measurable effects on the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background. All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than is directly observable, indicating that the remainder is dark.

The composition of dark matter is unknown, but may include new elementary particles such as WIMPs and axions, ordinary and heavy neutrinos, dwarf stars and planets collectively called MACHOs, and clouds of nonluminous gas. Current evidence favors models in which the primary component of dark matter is new elementary particles, collectively called nonbaryonic dark matter.

The dark matter component has vastly more mass than the "visible" component of the universe.[1] At present, the density of ordinary baryons and radiation in the universe is estimated to be equivalent to about one hydrogen atom per cubic metre of space. Only about 4% of the total energy density in the universe (as inferred from gravitational effects) can be seen directly. About 22% is thought to be composed of dark matter. The remaining 74% is thought to consist of dark energy, an even stranger component, distributed diffusely in space.[2] Some hard-to-detect baryonic matter (see baryonic dark matter) makes a contribution to dark matter, but constitutes only a small portion.[3][4] Determining the nature of this missing mass is one of the most important problems in modern cosmology and particle physics. It has been noted that the names "dark matter" and "dark energy" serve mainly as expressions of our ignorance, much as the marking of early maps with terra incognita.[2]

The first to provide evidence and infer the existence of a phenomenon that has come to be called "dark matter" was Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1933.[5] He applied the virial theorem to the Coma cluster of galaxies and obtained evidence of unseen mass. Zwicky estimated the cluster's total mass based on the motions of galaxies near its edge. When he compared this mass estimate to one based on the number of galaxies and total brightness of the cluster, he found that there was about 400 times more mass than expected. The gravity of the visible galaxies in the cluster would be far too small for such fast orbits, so something extra was required. This is known as the "missing mass problem". Based on these conclusions, Zwicky inferred that there must be some non-visible form of matter which would provide enough of the mass and gravity to hold the cluster together.

Much of the evidence for dark matter comes from the study of the motions of galaxies. Many of these appear to be fairly uniform, so by the virial theorem the total kinetic energy should be half the total gravitational binding energy of the galaxies. Experimentally, however, the total kinetic energy is found to be much greater: in particular, assuming the gravitational mass is due to only the visible matter of the galaxy, stars far from the center of galaxies have much higher velocities than predicted by the virial theorem. Galactic rotation curves, which illustrate the velocity of rotation versus the distance from the galactic center, cannot be explained by only the visible matter. Assuming that the visible material makes up only a small part of the cluster is the most straightforward way of accounting for this. Galaxies show signs of being composed largely of a roughly spherical halo of dark matter with the visible matter concentrated in a disc at the center. Low surface brightness dwarf galaxies are important sources of information for studying dark matter, as they have an uncommonly low ratio of visible matter to dark matter, and have few bright stars at the center which impair observations of the rotation curve of outlying stars.

According to results published in August 2006, dark matter has been observed separate from ordinary matter[6][7] through measurements of the Bullet Cluster, actually two nearby clusters of galaxies that collided about 150 million years ago.[8] Researchers analyzed the effects of gravitational lensing to determine total mass distribution in the pair and compared that to X-ray maps of hot gases, thought to constitute the large majority of ordinary matter in the clusters. The hot gases interacted during the collision and remain closer to the center. The individual galaxies and the dark matter did not interact and are further from the center.