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— THE VEIL IS TEARING — Half of the Universe is Missing! by Jean-Pierre Petit © 2002 Introduction and translation by André Dufour Unfortunately, this new model was not as much as considered during the symposium—simply because the announced subject of the meeting relat- ed to "dark matter", and anything which diverged from the generally accepted hypothesis was considered beside the point. Even top research scientists are often routine-minded and little prone to call themselves into question. careering away at a speed of five kilome- tres per second (3.1 miles per second). They have been followed ever since they left the Earth. Because they were intended to draw ever farther away from the Sun, there could have been no question of pow- ering them with energy gathered through solar panels. They are therefore both equipped with isotopic generators. A few years ago, one of the probes ceased emitting; the other one is still send- ing us feeble signals. But the important fact is that for over 30 years, thanks to the Doppler effect, we have been able to mea- sure their speed with exceptional accuracy. Do you remember what was done as soon as the first satellites were sent orbiting around the Earth? Using radioelectrical signals, measurements were taken which instantly revealed the speed at which America was shifting away from good old Europe. Wegener would have been pleased. Alas, the inventor of the theory of continental shifting died long ago. When astronauts set foot on the Moon, what did they do? They set up a mirror on the Moon's surface in order to reflect a laser beam sent from Earth, allowing accu- rate measurements to be made. The imme- diate result: it was discovered that the Moon draws away from the Earth at a rate of four centimetres (1.575 inches) per year—this, again, thanks to the Doppler effect and its uncanny accuracy. So don't Introduction s explained and colourfully illus- trated by Jean-Pierre Petit in his book We've Lost Half of the Universe (On a Perdu la Moitié de l'Univers, published by Albin Michel, 1997), astrophysicists the world over have a problem. In accordance with the total quantity of observable matter contained in the universe, galaxies should fly open and scatter their stars all over space, so that the sky should appear to us like one of those wallpapers with evenly spread lit- tle motifs. This, however, is far from being the case, since enormous "empty" space appears between compact galax- ies. One half of the universe seems to be missing, which would be responsible for the confinement of galaxies or clus- ters of galaxies. The world's scientific establishment's generally accepted hypothesis is that the empty space is filled with "cold dark matter"—dark being too cold to form visible stars. This hypothesis, however, fails to produce a satisfactory explana- tion for the observed abnormal deceler- ation of the two NASA space probes Pioneer X and XI—especially Pioneer X, which has now reached the confines of our solar system. In the course of a recent symposium in Marseille, France, Jean-Pierre Petit attempted to present another model of a universe. There might be a second universe, made up of "shadow" matter (neither cold nor dark), which would repel ours and would confine all that we see into the interstitial space left between large bubbles of void. Both universes would be interrelated only through gravity—light would not pass— but in opposite directions, the one repulsing the other. And this would explain Pioneer X's behaviour. Space Probes’ Abnormal Behaviour n 1972 and 1973, the United States launched a couple of space probes, Pioneer X and XI. These objects are important evidence of human adventure, and for several years they have been travelling beyond the confines of the solar system. Astronomers usually do their surveying with the help of a unit of length which is the mean Earth-to-Sun distance, called an "astronomical unit" (AU). If you wish to compare this to something quite Earthly, it would equal 93,399,750 statute miles. Is this of any help to you? I could as well have written one million or one trillion— you would have taken it for granted. By definition, the Earth is one AU distant from the Sun; Jupiter is at 5.2, Saturn 9.55, Neptune 30 and Pluto 40. The probes are now at 60 AU from the Sun—in other words, well beyond the lim- its of the solar system—and they are NEXUS = 43 AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com