Dark matter vs. modified gravity?

[alemsalem]

what's the status of that?
also why not just look for two systems that have the same visible distribution but with a different dark matter content?

 

[Chalnoth]

what's the status of that?
also why not just look for two systems that have the same visible distribution but with a different dark matter content?

As far as I'm concerned, it was basically solved with the detailed observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background by the WMAP satellite, which is easily explained by dark matter, but not so easy to explain by modified gravity.

Then, more recently, this observation came along that provides a much more visual demonstration, placing yet another nail in the coffin of modified gravity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster

I really like this blog post describing it:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2006/08/21/dark-matter-exists/

 

[little]

I just replied to another thread about this!

There are certainly still proponents of modified gravity. Milgrom, Benkenstein and Moffat are still generating papers and there are quite a number of new adherents to the ideas (McGaugh, Scarpa, etc). That doesn't mean that "consensus" is pointing towards dark matter - in fact, I think it's ALWAYS pointed toward dark matter. None of these modifications have taken a strong hold in main stream science. On the other hand, I also don't think they are yet shunned as bad science or even worse, pseudoscience.

On top of all of that, there are some folks that proclaim BOTH modified gravity and dark matter. I always thought that was the beauty of modified gravity - no need for this very mysterious, never been directly detected material. But needing to break down Newtonian physics at large scale (and some would say it would also break GR) AND magic matter? Yeah, let's just go with the one that explains it all!