I find it fascinating -- it's a short article, but says concisely that there are delays observed in pulsar's pulses and they think there are dense concentrations of matter passing in front. But we don't know what they are. This is _fascinating_.
Why link to this bs article? It is copied from another article [1], which itself is a writedown of the original press release [2], which in turn refers to an unpublished 15 min parallel presentation at a conference [3].
MACHOS (i.e. compact massive objects) making up dark matter has been ruled out by other experiments up to several solar masses [4]. Any article insinuating that these things could be dark matter at their mass range is not just sensational, it is flat out wrong.
We already know there is some stuff flying around from these other experiments, but the quote from the subheadline "I have been warned not to call them planets, not to call them dark matter" is very good advice from experts, because they clearly are neither. And yet the article makes this sound like a conspiracy. This kind of science reporting is not just bad journalism, it is dangerous.
As per sigmoid10's comment I would encourage the intellectually interested to pursue the sources rather than this somewhat hyped take.
I would also like to recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Final Architecture" sci fi trilogy for anyone who finds the idea of massive objects in deep space enthralling.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 19.0 ms ] threadI find it fascinating -- it's a short article, but says concisely that there are delays observed in pulsar's pulses and they think there are dense concentrations of matter passing in front. But we don't know what they are. This is _fascinating_.
MACHOS (i.e. compact massive objects) making up dark matter has been ruled out by other experiments up to several solar masses [4]. Any article insinuating that these things could be dark matter at their mass range is not just sensational, it is flat out wrong.
We already know there is some stuff flying around from these other experiments, but the quote from the subheadline "I have been warned not to call them planets, not to call them dark matter" is very good advice from experts, because they clearly are neither. And yet the article makes this sound like a conspiracy. This kind of science reporting is not just bad journalism, it is dangerous.
[1] https://www.iflscience.com/universes-timekeepers-hint-at-inv...
[2] https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/how-astronomers-are-us...
[3] https://nam2024.hull.ac.uk/connecting-the-milky-way-with-its...
[4] https://darkmatterdarkenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/...
I would also like to recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Final Architecture" sci fi trilogy for anyone who finds the idea of massive objects in deep space enthralling.