dark matter tagged posts

New Algorithm may help Autonomous Vehicles Navigate Narrow, crowded streets

A CMU team developed a algorithm that could help an autonomous vehicle safely and efficiently navigate narrow, crowded streets like this one.

Autonomous vehicle researchers have tackled navigating a crowded, narrow street, with cars parked on both sides, and not enough space for vehicles traveling in both directions to pass each other. It is a scenario familiar to anyone who has driven down a crowded, narrow street. Parked cars line both sides, and there isn’t enough space for vehicles traveling in both directions to pass each other. One has to duck into a gap in the parked cars or slow and pull over as far as possible for the other to squeeze by.

Drivers find a way to negotiate this, but not without close calls and frustration...

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Dark Matter is Slowing the Spin of the Milky Way’s Galactic Bar

artist's conception of the Milky Way

For 30 years, astrophysicists have predicted such a slowdown, but this is the first time it has been measured. The researchers say it gives a new type of insight into the nature of dark matter, which acts like a counterweight slowing the spin.

The spin of the Milky Way’s galactic bar, which is made up of billions of clustered stars, has slowed by about a quarter since its formation, according to a new study by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford.

For 30 years, astrophysicists have predicted such a slowdown, but this is the first time it has been measured.

The researchers say it gives a new type of insight into the nature of dark matter, which acts like a counterweight slowing the spin.

In the study, published in the Monthly Notices o...

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What if the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way is actually a mass of Dark Matter?

Milky Way
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A team of researchers at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics has found evidence that suggests Sagittarius A* is not a massive black hole but is instead a mass of dark matter. In their paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, the group describes the evidence they found and how it has stood up to testing.

For several years the scientific community has agreed that there is a mass at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and that the mass is a supermassive black hole—it has been named Sagittarius A*. Its presence has never been verified directly, however, instead it has been inferred by noting the behavior of bodies around it...

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What if the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way is actually a mass of Dark Matter?

Milky Way
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A team of researchers at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics has found evidence that suggests Sagittarius A* is not a massive black hole but is instead a mass of dark matter. In their paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, the group describes the evidence they found and how it has stood up to testing.

For several years the scientific community has agreed that there is a mass at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and that the mass is a supermassive black hole—it has been named Sagittarius A*. Its presence has never been verified directly, however, instead it has been inferred by noting the behavior of bodies around it...

Read More