Jake Young is a 
Dark matter has worked its way into political cliche:
Rosenbaum's Political Physics: Do you ever sense there is some large mass of dark matter, an unseen Scandal Star, the gravitational pull of which is warping the coverage of what seems, on the surface, a pretty dull presidential race? I do. So does Ron Rosenbaum. I thought the Dark Star was the Edwards affair allegation. But Rosenbaum says "everyone in the elite Mainstream media" knows about another juicy scandal that the LAT is supposedly sitting on. I guess this is proof that I'm not in the elite, because I don't know what he's talking about. ... My vestigial Limbaugh gland tells me it must involve a Democrat, or else the Times would have found a reason to print it. ... P.S.: If it's just Richardson, that will be very disappointing. ... 3:16 P.M. (Italic emphasis mine. Links in original.)
It was only a matter of time before dark matter went the way of DNA into common verbiage. Let's just hope that people at least use the term correctly. I am not keeping my fingers crossed. I don't think that he is actually doing so here. Does dark matter come in "stars"? Wouldn't that imply that it is not in fact dark?
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I sounds to me like he has heard the phrase "dark matter" but has no idea what it means and so assumes it must be a new name for black holes.
Posted by: John McKay | November 5, 2007 6:36 PM
Well, dark matter doesn't clump quite as well as normal matter, but it *does* still congregate around stars due to gravity. In fact, gravity is the only way that dark matter interacts with normal matter.
It doesn't come in 'stars', per se, insofar as it doesn't compress and ignite to produce fusion, but the usage is still mildly appropriate. We have dark matter swirling around our own Sol, and we would not be too far off calling it Dark Sol.
Posted by: Xanthir, FCD | November 5, 2007 6:37 PM
Well a small percentage of dark matter is ordinary matter in nonluminous (or with low ) luminosity form that we don't see it. That would include red and brown dwarfs (which can be seen, but beyond a certain distance usually aren't), as well as black holes & neutron stars which aren't actively accreting matter. Then you could have free floating planets and other chunks of ordinary stuff.
At one point there was a "theory" about a dark solar companion called Nemesis. It supposedly had a very long period elliptical orbit, and its close approaches supposedly perturbed comets into the inner solar system, where earth/comet collisions were invoked to explain supposed periodicities to the timing of mass extinction events. I don't know if this theory has any supporters left.
Posted by: bigTom | November 5, 2007 6:48 PM