New light on dark matter
Dark matter is as mysterious as it sounds – very little is known about it, save that it makes up about 85 per cent of all the matter in the universe. Yet, indirect proof of its existence comes from observation of rapidly rotating galaxies, which cannot be held together merely by the gravitational pull of the matter they contain – there has to be a lot of invisible stuff known as “dark matter” to prevent them from flying apart with the force of their own energies. Several candidate particles have been postulated that may constitute dark matter – both highly massive and lightweight – but none of the experiments have detected any such particle so far, directly. Also, because dark matter is not evenly spread out, but occurs in clumps, there should be nearly a trillion axions per cubic centimetre in the Milky Way – our galaxy.
Largest ever map of dark matter is created using light from 100 MILLION galaxies
New particle could explain why the universe's greatest mystery remains unsolved
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