Very cool reading but a LOT of speculation.

I don't really understand any of this, but i'm popping it because it sure sounds interesting and it's awfully impressive that there are people who can figure this stuff out.

I don't fully understand it either, but I post this stuff because we seem to have some smart people around who might, and be articulate enough to explain the crap out of it for the rest of the great unwashed like you & me!

I'm with you, eric and Octane. It's fascinating stuff. Sure wish it made more sense to me. Love the photo.

Let's see if this makes sense... mind you this is a real basic overview.

Hydrogen needs matter (and gravity) to create the reactions (fusion) that cause stars to come to life. Dark matter (anti-matter) can quell this. What this article says is that in the beginning, dark matter was more prevalent than originally thought. As hydrogen began to ignite into stars, the gravity attracted the dark matter which eventually killed the fusion process.

Some of what they claim in here stretches my understanding a bit. I also am finding it hard to swallow that dark matter would be affected by gravity.

Well that's sort of what I don't understand.

What we now know is that the only thing that stops centrifugal force from ripping galaxies apart is the dark matter coalescing at their cores, increasing the overall mass of the host galaxy.

If this happens routinely -- and continues to happen today - why do we get star formation at all?

Or are they say that there's less dark matter now than there once was?

My head hurts. I need chocolate...

Or are they say that there's less dark matter now than there once was?

Sort of... I need to re-read the article but it seems they are hypothesizing that the dark matter gathered in huge masses thus thinning the amount of dark matter within the scattered universe.

I do know they say they believe that these dark matter globules still exist out there somewhere.

One would assume that leaves just enough to bind galaxies together without stopping the fusion process.

My head hurts. I need chocolate...

LOL... I concur

Nobody can understand dark matter, let alone explain it.
Calling it dark matter maintains the illusion that we understand some of it's properties. Basically what we know of dark matter is that it exists, but like black holes, knowing it exists can be a start, and considering it's reality can show us how to understand it's properties by looking at the way it affects things around it, We might find the key tomorrow or in a century but it will be waiting for us. We just have to look in the right place, and in the right way.

The milky way is driven by a super massive black hole... and I have Chocolate ice cream.