SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
GPS has a new job. It does a great job of telling us our location, but the network of hyper-accurate clocks in space could get a fix on something far more elusive: dark matter.
Dark matter makes up 80 per cent of the universe's matter but scarcely interacts with ordinary matter. A novel particle is the most popular candidate, but Andrei Derevianko ( http://www.dereviankogroup.com/dark-matter-atomic-clocks-idea-call-experimental-efforts/ ) at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Maxim Pospelov ( http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/people/maxim-pospelov ) at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada propose that kinks or cracks in the quantum fields that permeate the universe could be the culprit.
If they are right, fundamental properties such as the mass of an electron or the strength of electromagnetic fields would change at the kinks. "The effect is essentially locally modifying fundamental constants," Derevianko says. Clocks would be affected too, measuring time slightly differently as a result.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26575-dark-matter-could-be-seen-in-gps-time-glitches.html
[Abstract/Paper]:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.1244
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3137.html
(Score: 4, Informative) by Open4D on Tuesday November 18 2014, @01:16PM
Maybe, but it's not like physicists haven't considered the alternatives to dark matter. You can even read about that right here on SN: #50801 [soylentnews.org], #90458 [soylentnews.org].
Physicists aren't just trying to pretend that their theories are complete and sweep any inconsistencies under the carpet; they are actively trying to improve their understanding of the Universe, with dark matter the area that many (most?) of them think is likely to prove fruitful.
Further reading: the nine separate sub-sections under "Observational evidence" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter [wikipedia.org]