
510 Classical Mechanics
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is possible from the Earth’s surface. The data showed that COBE had detected the nonuniformity
in the microwave background, amounting to approximately 30 millionths of a Kelvin. This may be
sufcient to seed the formation of large-scale structures in the universe, especially if there is a great
deal of nonluminous or “dark matter” present in the universe. This invisible matter, whose nature is
not yet known, supposedly provided an added gravitational force needed to pull the gas together into
galaxies within a reasonable time. We will explore the dark matter problem in the following section. ...