About The Mystery Of The Dark Matter In Space

By James Donahue

An international team of astronomers recently used NASA's Hubble telescope to capture an image of a "ghostly ring" of what they called dark matter deep in another galaxy.

They said this ring was formed long ago during a "titanic collision" between two galaxies, and it is the first time that a dark matter distribution has not only been observed, but photographed.

What was remarkable about this story is that dark matter is, by its very definition, an invisible something that astronomers now theorize comprises a large part of the universe. If it exists, they say it cannot be seen because it appears to be the opposite of "ordinary matter," or the stuff of which the suns and planets and other visible objects in our universe is made of.

Astronomers came to the conclusion that not only dark matter, but something called dark energy exists in that vacuum of deep space because of the way the stars and solar systems and even the galaxies all behave as part of the whole. They say that the very laws of physics, as understood by science, concludes that there has to be an invisible substance of something in the midst of all that vast darkness that holds everything together in the harmonious rhythm of movement that we observe as our new battery of high powered telescopes probe to the very edge of space.

And therein dwells the great mystery. Whatever is out there exists within a vacuum, it is invisible to us, we believe we can fly space probes through it without obstruction, yet scientists say it must exist.

That the only probes to ever leave our solar system, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, have strangely altered course and slowed down after passing Pluto, has some scientists thinking that dark matter may be the cause. There is a movement within NASA to send a new probe into deep space to find out more.

There is another thought in all of this that has been kicked around among the more philosophical cluster of scientific thinkers. They conjecture that the blackness of deep space remains invisible to us because we are blinded by our inability to utilize the full extent of our brains.

People who study such things say that every human brain has the potential of reaching a point where it has up to 100 billion electrons firing, although few of us get beyond about 10 percent of this number working within our lifetime. In a strange parallel, or perhaps by design, astronomers estimate that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, but we can only see about 10 percent of what exists. The rest of our universe is comprised of darkness or invisible matter.

The question then is, if we could learn to turn on all of the neurons in our brains and by utilizing both left and right hemispheres at the same time, get all 100 billion neurons firing at the same time, could we see and possibly understand the rest of the universe?

And if this is possible, what else would be visible to us?

Psychics and spiritual leaders talk about opening that third eye so we can see "beyond the veil." Indeed, this appears to be a scientific way of explaining exactly what the spiritualists are talking about. There is an active spiritual world that surrounds us. Some believe that it may be possible to not only observe this second universe that surrounds us, but under the right circumstances, we may be able to step into it.

This is extremely abstract thinking for most of us. Only people like Stephen Hawking and a few other mental giants of the world have such concepts of understanding in their heads. It was Hawking who once said that the truth of everything is so simple that the day is soon coming when in a flash, everyone will know it.