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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by doctorcrimson@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

EDIT: Let's cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We're not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don't believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I'm sure almost everybody has something to add.

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[-] admiralteal@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Did planets form because of electromagnetism?

For myriad reasons, the answer to this is an emphatic yes.

Gravity may attract particles towards each other, but the force that actually causes them to interact with each other is almost entirely electromagnetism. The collisions of grains of cosmic dust are caused by electromagnetic fields interacting with each other. As is the gradual loss of kinetic energy -- the friction -- that allows some amount of potential energy to get converted to heat, allowing the particles to slow down and, as you described it, clump.

Absent electromagnetism, the actual particle nuclei would need to directly hit each other to cause an interaction via the nuclear forces, which is VERY improbable in the vastness of space. Improbable doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, but in this case it does mean the universe is way too big and young. Without electromagnetic interactions, particles just form orbits. Which again, that's what a "dark matter halo" is. It's all the dark matter stuff orbitting around a galaxy's center of mass because it doesn't get easily trapped in the center. It's all the dark matter in a gravitational system constantly whizzing back and forth across the center of mass since there's no electromagnetic force to rob them of the potential or kinetic energy and stop them from heading back out.

And, conveniently, these halos are just what our observations seem to indicate dark matter is doing in a typical galaxy. The observations and theory align well

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world -1 points 11 months ago

The observations and theory align well

OK, I can accept that. Good luck hunting down whatever this dark matter is made of, then.

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
110 points (63.1% liked)

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