The Standard Cosmological Model

If you have been reading this blog since the beginning, you are definitely in a minority. I know I have been writing and reading these posts. I wanted to challenge my high school charges; I felt responsible for their science education, smart kids from Lombard Illinois. Relevant Science is science that those students, and hopefully, somebody else, would be interested in.

Entering the fourth year since then, I find myself sorrounded by equally bright, college age young people.  I hope this is relevant for more readers than my intended audience.

This week there was an important announcement from the Chandra Collaboration about the Universe (below).

The Universe is not only expanding, it is accelerating!

We are made of a minority material in the Universe. Just like King Midas, we are made of stuff in the 4% or less, abundance category. Most of the Universe is made of  Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Benjamin Freivogel just announced his hypothesis that Dark Matter is mainly made out of Axions. Many years ago Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn proposed the existence of this particle to explain violation of CP, or lack of it, in Strong Interactions. Using the Anthropic Principle, Freivogel, makes a strong argument in favor of the Dark Matter as Axion  proposal.

This week we learn that indeed, there is Dark Energy. Ten years ago Perlmutter and Riess found supernova stars that were farther than they should be, according to the now, Old Standard Cosmological Model. This week as I said, a completely different way to look at the problem has confirmed that interpretation of the supernovae observations.

Dark Energy stunts the growth of Clusters of Galaxies, the largest objects known, besides the observable Universe itself. These are like little universes, formed by accumulating galaxies with the force that Newton proposed more than three hundred years ago, now (1687, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica) , and getting pushed away by Dark Energy.  The clusters are not as big as they could've been without this negative energy.

As always we find out that we live on the edge, not only attraction, a little repulsion, not only heat, also some cold air. The Goldilocks Principle in action.

We are made of a minority material, living in the most auspicious Universe we could think of.

Some people get satisfaction from this idea, like an Angel is taking care of us. Risking being considered ungrateful, my instincts make me prefer the idea, that we are where we can be, we are not where we cannot be. Mexico, and Chilpancingo, are some of the best places in the whole Universe to be, and here I am.