mirror matter in the solar system?
:: dark matter
candidate
Mirror matter is an entirely new form of matter predicted to exist if mirror symmetry is
a fundamental symmetry of nature. Mirror matter has the right broad properties to explain the
inferred dark matter of the Universe and might also be responsible for a variety of other puzzles
in particle physics, astrophysics, meteoritics and planetary science.
The mysterious blue 'ponds' and the dearth of small craters found on the asteroid Eros by the
NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft can be explained by the mirror matter space-body hypothesis, according
to Robert Foot and Saibal Mitra.
Mirror matter is a candidate for the mysterious dark matter inferred to exist in galaxies. Some
amount of mirror matter should exist in our solar system, perhaps not enough to form a large
body like a planet, but enough to form small asteroid-sized space-bodies. Indeed the total mass
of asteroids in the asteroid belt is estimated to be only about 0.05% of the mass of the Earth.
A similar number, or even greater number of mirror bodies, perhaps orbiting in a different plane
or even spherically distributed like the Oort cloud is a fascinating possibility.
An even more remarkable possibility is that the comets themselves are the mirror matter space-bodies!
Observations by spacecraft have found that the cores of comets appear to be composed of extremely
dark material. Could this dark material be the dark matter? >from *Mirror
matter in the solar system: New evidence for mirror matter from Eros by Robert Foot and Saibal
Mitra* , November 4, 2002 and *Mirror
matter footprint on Eros?*
related context
> the seven wonders
of the mirror world
> center for cosmological
physics: probing phenomena beyond standard model. september 13, 2001
> first "map"
of dark matter. march 7, 2000
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