Bringing Out Dark Matter Is AMS’s “Endeavour”

When Fritz Zwicky, an eminent Swiss astronomer, was busy in his research he found something unexpected. Something was missing. It was actually the ‘matter’ which was missing. It is said that Universe contains about five times unknown matter than the matter which we know.

The ever elusive ‘dark matter’ or a term coined by Zwicky in 1930s for invisible matter present in universe will now be visible as far as the human knowledge is concerned. This time NASA’s STS-134 mission is all set to get an insight into what actually it is, and get more evidence and knowledge about it.

NASA is all set to launch its 14 day STS-134 mission on April 29, 2011 from Kennedy space center, 3:47 P.M EDT. The space shuttle ‘Endeavour’ would contain crew members Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Greg H. Johnson and NASA Mission Specialists Greg Chamitoff, Mike Fincke and Drew Feustel. Also it will have ESA Mission Specialist Roberto Vittori.

This time, this mission is equipped with an instrument called as ‘Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer’ (AMS). AMS is a superconducting, cryogenic magnet which is made by, tested by and will be further operated by a team of 56 institutes from 16 different countries.

#-Link-Snipped-#AMS consists of a heavy (15000 pounds) super-cooled magnet which will be encased in a large cylinder and will be kept outside the International space station. This magnet would then catch any radiation around it and make it available to scientists who will then try to understand those.

This mission is intended to know about the origins of Universe and it will also eventually verify various theories, which were given and propagated by various eminent scientists. One of the theories is that “There is equal amount of anti-matter and matter present in whole universe.”  AMS is intended to equate both in mathematical terms.

AMS is the brainchild of Dr. Samuel Ting from Massachusetts institute of technology and head of team for AMS. Dr. Ting says, “If you do an experiment with such a large magnet … you're entering a new domain. You don't know what you'll see." Dr. Ting has also shared a Nobel in 1976 for discovering subatomic particles.

There are people who disagree to the concept that AMS will be very useful. Gregory Tarle, from university of Michigan says, "There is little value in AMS. It's actually a disgrace."

Man always wants to keep an account of everything. If we go by that, and look at the beautiful shining clusters of gases, we find that it has tremendous gravitational force. But the matter which creates this force seems to be invisible. What is it? Why is it? The questions are innumerable.

Whatever we say, in my opinion, it will be a path breaking scientific journey of mankind in the deepest realms of pure guess work. It would be another attempt to ask God about the origins of this universe, his lovely mother earth and eventually his own origin.

You can also check out this video:

 

News Source: LATimes Image Source: #-Link-Snipped-#