From Dr. Becky.
AD – Go to https://ground.news/drbecky to stay fully informed with the latest Space and Science news. Save 40% off the Vantage plan through my link for unlimited access this month only. | Although all our observations of the Universe point towards dark matter outnumbering normal
matter 5 to 1, we still don’t know what it’s made of because we haven’t *directly* detected it. BUT what if we could use Jupiter to
detect dark matter? That’s what this paper published by Blanco & Leane this month tried to do by detecting trihydrogen cation, or H3+ and it definitely set some heads turning…
Blanco & Leane (2024; searching for dark matter on Jupiter) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.06758
Stallard et al. (2015; Cassini H3+ detections on Jupiter) – https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JA021097
00:00 – Introduction
02:08 – Ground News AD
03:54 – What are trihydrogen cations H3+?
05:54 – What have they’ve got to do with Jupiter and dark matter?
07:45 – How much H3+ Blanco & Leane found on Jupiter
10:13 – What this tells us about the nature of dark matter
12:32 – Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
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👩🏽💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don’t know. If you’ve ever wondered about something in space and couldn’t find an answer online – you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
