Dark matter doesn’t exist? New study challenges foundations & age of the universe

A new study revealed that dark matter does not exist in the universe, and it is around 27 billion years old. The study has challenged long-held ideas about the universe by proposing a model that does not require dark matter or dark energy, two concepts that have dominated modern cosmology for decades. An earlier study indicated that the universe is a mix of ordinary matter and two invisible components called dark matter and dark energy.

The finding was discovered by Rajendra Gupta, a physics professor at the University of Ottawa, who has proposed a model that aims to explain the universe without dark matter or dark energy. He argued that familiar assumptions might be holding back progress. “The study’s findings confirm that our previous work (“JWST early universe observations and ΛCDM cosmology”) about the age of the universe being 26.7 billion years has allowed us to discover that the universe does not require dark matter to exist,” explains Gupta.

Rajendra Gupta combines two ideas in his model: covarying coupling constants (CCC) and “tired light” (TL). The CCC concept questions whether fundamental constants, such as the strength of forces or the speed of light, might vary over time or across space, which could significantly alter our understanding of cosmic evolution, according to The Earth.com.

The tired light theory offers an alternative explanation for redshift, suggesting that light from distant galaxies loses energy as it travels, causing it to shift toward the red end of the spectrum, rather than this effect being solely due to the expansion of the universe. Together, the CCC+TL framework aims to explain observed cosmic signals.

Is dark matter real?

The concept of dark matter emerged from observational anomalies rather than theory alone. In the 1930s, astronomer Fritz Zwicky observed that galaxy clusters were moving in ways that could not be explained by the mass visible to the telescope. Later findings indicated that galaxies rotate faster than expected at their edges than expected, suggesting the presence of additional unseen influence of gravity. Evidence from Gravitational lensing further supports the idea that there is more mass than what is directly observable.

According to the standard cosmological model, dark matter is believed to account for roughly 27 per cent of the universe, while ordinary matter makes up less than 5 per cent. The remainder is attributed to dark energy, a theoretical force thought to be responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion. This framework also places the universe’s age at around 13.8 billion years.

Redshifts and cosmic observations

A key focus of the study is redshift, the phenomenon where light stretches to longer wavelengths as it travels. The analysis compares galaxy distributions at lower redshifts with those from the early universe at higher redshifts. It suggests that these observations can be explained using the CCC+TL model, without the need to include dark matter in the calculations.

“There are several papers that question the existence of dark matter, but mine is the first one, to my knowledge, that eliminates its cosmological existence while being consistent with key cosmological observations that we have had time to confirm,” Gupta concluded.