 |
| Dark Matter around Milky Way (Artist's Impression by ESO) |
(weakly interacting massive particles, thought to be the “stuff” that dark matter is composed of) have been invading our physical bodies since God knows when.
After all, it says right from the biblical get-go that “darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
This “darkness” could very well have been dark matter, “an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe.” Charles
Choi of MSNBC’s Space calls dark matter a “ghostly” substance with properties that are thought to be “intangible.” So how do we know it’s there? Choi explains that its presence is detectable because of its
gravitational pull.
Choi also lets slip that you and I - even as we read this article - are being bombarded with billions of these dark-matter particles “rushing through us every second.”
Before a collective ouch wells up, it
is also pertinent to realize that most of them just whiz on past our many other bits and pieces.
Rarely does one so much as collide with even an oxygen or a hydrogen nuclei (which is a relief - since hydrogen and oxygen comprise the majority of the human body’s atoms and mass).
However, such collisions do take place - and more often than scientists previously thought. Does this mean that we’re in danger of being blown to smithereens?
Perhaps, but probably not by WIMPs. As their
name implies, the amount of radiation that WIMPs emit is considerably weaker than that of other common environmental components.
In other words, if the WIMPs don’t get you, the radon might.
Remember, God only promised that there would never again be a world-destroying flood. He wasn’t nearly as specific
about radioactivity.
Resources
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47210057/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.T5sGk6tKRLc
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209:8-17&version=NIV
No comments:
Post a Comment