From Charles Q. Choi at Inside Science News:
Now researchers examining 153 galaxies find that by looking solely at where stars and gases in those galaxies are located, they could precisely predict the anomalous ways in which they moved. This may hint that dark matter is more strongly coupled to normal matter than currently thought. It could also indicate that dark matter does not exist and that another explanation is needed for the discrepancies that dark matter models were invoked to solve, said study lead author Stacy McGaugh, an astrophysicist and chair of astronomy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Previous analyses of the orbital velocities of the stars in galaxies often depended on visible wavelengths of light. However, the stars that produce the most visible light are relatively short-lived and prone to fluctuations, and so may not provide the best picture of how matter is scattered overall throughout a galaxy.More.
See also: Dark matter theory “running out of room to hide”? Nature: As the search to identify [dark matter] is now in its fourth decade, things are starting to get a little desperate.
and
Dark matter: Skeptics wanted
(It’s a good thing no one is going to starve over this. )
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