meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The John Batchelor Show

The Elephant in the Universe: 100-year search for dark matter Author: Govert Schilling Theoretical Stability and Observational Proof of Dark Matter Halos

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Elephant in the Universe: 100-year search for dark matter Author: Govert Schilling


Theoretical Stability and Observational Proof of Dark Matter Halos

Headline: Galaxies Need Invisible Halos: Ostriker and Rubin Provide Evidence

In the late 1960s, theorist Jeremiah Ostriker calculated that a flattened galaxy like the Milky Way could not remain stable without a large, spherical "halo" of unseen matter surrounding it, providing a theoretical basis for dark matter. This theoretical need was then powerfully confirmed by the observational work of American astronomer Vera Rubin and her colleague Kent Ford throughout the 1970s. Studying distant galaxies, including Andromeda, they discovered that stars on the outer edges rotated at unexpectedly high, constant velocities, rather than slowing down as predicted. This "flattening the curve" of rotational velocities offered the first concrete proof for the existence of dark matter, whose gravity was necessary to prevent galaxies from flying apart.

1958

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Building a coffee business?

0:02.0

Serving the best Americano in town is up to you.

0:04.0

But winning back time and growing your business,

0:06.0

leave that to sum up.

0:07.0

Take orders and payments anywhere with the new SumUp terminal.

0:10.0

Turn occasional customers into regulars with a free loyalty program.

0:13.0

And with the SumUp point of sale system,

0:15.0

you'll always know when you're running low on your best-selling blends.

0:18.0

Visit sumup.co.uk to learn more.

0:30.4

This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchel with Govert Schilling, an astronomer chronicler, who is taking us into the part of astronomy that is the most confounding and tempting to astronomers, to cosmologists,

0:40.4

to people who read Govert's book.

0:42.3

We're looking for something that we can't see.

0:45.1

We've never found.

0:46.7

And we're going to try to imagine how we can certify it exists.

0:52.6

We need theory is wonderful. But how do we certify it? Now we come to

0:57.1

Jeremiah Osterker, who thanks to Govert, I've been led to his book, Heart of Darkness, published

1:03.0

just a few years ago. He is an astronomer with firm ideas, and one of those firm ideas

1:08.3

is to picture again what we can't see.

1:12.4

It's called the halo effect around our galaxy, the Milky Way, around all galaxies.

1:17.2

What is that? How should we picture it?

1:19.7

Yeah, it was a strange situation because, as we discussed before, Fritz Vicki was the one who really was the main one who realized there must be a lot of unseen matter in galaxies.

1:30.8

But no one paid too much attention back then.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.