Cosmos has triple the number of stars...

[Macavity]

Cosmos has triple the number of stars... Reported in S@N (Nature) etc.

Basically, KEK has found vast numbers of 10-30%, solar mass, red dwarfs (sic) in Elliptical galaxies. I would have thought this would have generated a little more excitement? Not often things are underestimated by a (albeit understandable) factor of THREE! More alien real-estate? Unfortunately, it doesn't have much impact on the requirement for dark mass etc. though...

[Tim]

ack, yet MORE we have to learn.....

[roboticsound]

Do you know what effect it does have on dark matter situation and well even though this alone doesn't account for it all does this not show that there is still plenty out there that we haven't discovered.

I for one think that "dark matter" is not going to be some type of exotic matter but rather just ordinary matter that we just haven't seen or "noticed".

[markophoto]

it does say in the brief article in S@N that scientists are trying to work out what impact this has on the search for dark matter.

It could be that some of the gravitational pull previously thought to be associated with dark matter could instead come from the vast amounts of previously undiscovered stars now thought to exist.

[Macavity]

I suppose, when "atoms" constitute a mere 4.6% of the universe (apparently!) ...

Dark matter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

... adding a "few more" - Even tripling the number of light weight objects makes little difference? But, with the apparent slump in new discoveries of fundamental / exotic particles, I still hope for a hidden, more conventional, explanation too...