We take far too much of what scientists say at face value. At present there is no evidence either for Dark Matter or Dark Energy. There are, however, alternate paths which astronomers and cosmologists have ignored for almost a century. Cosmologists often refer to cosmic gas and dust but the most common form of matter in the universe is plasma. Plasma has many interesting characteristics. For instance, light travelling through it will be red shifted. So how much of the observed red shift is due to velocity and how much is due to the vast amounts of interstellar plasma? Observation strongly suggests that Birkeland Currents connect planets with suns, suns with galaxies, galaxies to clusters, and clusters to each other.

Figure 1. Image showing a Birkeland Current. Plasma radiates in different colors as they are made of different elements. Multiple concentric layers of positive and negative charges flow past each other. Ions still exist away from the bright areas but do not produce synchrotron radiation. Therefore they are not detectable and 'Dark'. The Z-Pinch is where current densities and thus the concentration of matter are highest forming stars or galaxies.

It makes far more sense that the electric force is what gathers mass together to form larger bodies with gravity only taking over at shorter range. The force between a positive ion and a negative ion is 10 E36 times that of the gravitational force. Astronauts aboard the ISS showed by simple experiment that particles with very low mass would clump together quickly from static electricity alone. It is not difficult to imagine that the vast amounts of plasma -- in the non-radiating dark mode -- could account for the missing Dark Matter. It is suggested that the galaxy clusters in cosmic strings are held there by this Dark Matter but the more likely cause is Birkeland Currents. It is interesting that on the many popular science programs that plasma is rarely present. Birkeland Currents and Marklund Convection are never mentioned at all, though they've been confirmed by experiment.