Stranded in Space

illustration of dark matter "hairs" surrounding Earth, "root" end in                      NASA/JPL-CalTech

Is space filled with filaments? It might be, according to a new theory about dark matter. The traditional view is that dark matter, which makes up about 27 percent of the universe, is basically stationary and doesn't interact with light. What some scientists believe is that dark matter forms thin streams, or "hairs," of particles that orbit galaxies, moving at the same speed. The gravity of a planet, such as Earth, would bend the particle stream and focus it so that it would become denser. The density, they hope, if they can pinpoint the "root" of the hair, which is densest, should allow them to "get a bonanza of data about dark matter,” says JPL's Gary Prézeau: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2015/11/earth-might-have-hairy-dark-matter