Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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Direct Proof of Dark Matter
July 24th, 2007
Chandra :: Photo Album :: 1E 0657-56 :: 21 Aug 06
The issue of the reality of dark matter has kept coming up recently in my life, both in the writing and educational spheres. I recently finished copy edits on the new book (SPIDER STAR will hit stores in March 2008 and I’ll blog about that soon), and dark matter is a central concept. On the educational side, the first LAUNCH PAD astronomy workshop for writers recently concluded and was by all means a big success (I’ll blog about that very soon). We covered dark matter, and this article, during the workshop.
So the linked article discusses Chandra X-ray observations of “the bullet cluster” which is a collision of two galaxy clusters. The majority of normal, or baryonic, matter as we say, is in the form of very hot gas in clusters. This hot gas emits X-rays that we can see and trace. In the case of the bullet cluster, drag during the collision has impeded the motion of the hot gas. Not the majority of the matter — dark, non-baryonic matter. That has moved on through just as expected without slowing. And we can trace it by the gravitational lensing of background galaxies. Thus the center of mass of the two clusters has become separated from the center of mass of the hot X-ray gas, which constitutes the bulk of the normal matter. You can’t explain away this result by invoking modified Newtonian dynamics, as some try to do for galactic rotation curves and other indirect evidence of dark matter.
So this observation seems like the real deal, the smoking gun if you will, demonstrating the reality of dark matter.
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