Dark matter is believed to account for approximately 85 percent to 90 percent of all the matter in the universe. This means the stars, planets, asteroids, our bodies, cars, and everything in-between, only makes up about five to 10 percent of the universe. So-called ordinary atomic matter, or baryonic matter, is everything around you, which is built from a basic mix of electrons, protons and neutrons – atoms. Dark matter, on the other hand, is different in this regard because physicists are not quite sure what it is made of or how it works.
Dark matter is called dark because it does not appear to interact with electromagnetic radiation such as light.
This means dark matter doe not emit light, nor does it reflect light in any tangible way, which we can detect.
Astrophysicist Karen Masters, of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, said: “Dark matter is the term astronomers use for the matter that they detect in the universe, which cannot be seen.
“What I mean by this is that although when you look through a telescope appears to be there, the way the visible matter moves indicates that there must be more mass present.
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Dark matter: The mystery substance explains why galaxies are heavier than they should be (Image: GETTY)
“It is currently thought about 10 percent of the matter in the universe is visible, the rest is something we don’t understand.”
In essence, galaxies appear to be much heavier than the sum mass of all of the stars and age continued within them.
This conundrum means some form of invisible matter is present within galaxies, giving them more mass and keeping them together with gravity.
Dr Masters said: “Our galaxy, like all other spiral galaxies, is rotating. The stars move on orbits around the centre of the galaxy.
“It was the motions of the stars in external galaxies that lead to the idea of dark matter in the universe – the motions indicated that there was more mass within their orbit than could be accounted for by visible matter alone. This is also true in our galaxy.”
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How are physicists hunting down evidence of dark matter?
In December 2014, an intensive study of X-ray emissions from the Andromeda Galaxy and Peruses cluster provided an unusual spike in readings.
About 10 percent of the matter in the universe is visible
Astronomers who analysed the spike could not match it up with any known particle or atom on the periodic table.
This has led some astronomers to speculate the signal was produced by dark matter.
Oleg Ruchayskiy, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, said: “The signal’s distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter — that is, concentrated and intense in the centre of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges.”
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And study co-author Alexey Boyarsky, of EPFL, said: “With the goal of verifying our findings, we then looked at data from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and made the same observations.”
Today, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, hope smashing together protons at the speed of light can unravel some dark matter mysteries.
The LHC is a 17-mile-long tunnel under Switzerland, which accelerate and smashes together beams of protons at near the speed of light to break them down into their constituent particles.
CERN said: “Many theories say the dark matter particles would be light enough to be produced at the LHC. If they were created at the LHC, they would escape through the detectors unnoticed
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Dark matter: The mystery matter does not interact with electromagnetic radiation (Image: GETTY)
Dark matter: Physicists at CERN hope to unravel some dark matter secrets (Image: GETTY)
“However, they would carry away energy and momentum, so physicists could infer their existence from the amount of energy and momentum ‘missing’ after a collision.
“Dark matter candidates arise frequently in theories that suggest physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry and extra dimensions.
“One theory suggests the existence of a ‘Hidden Valley’, a parallel world made of dark matter having very little in common with matter we know.
“If one of these theories proved to be true, it could help scientists gain a better understanding of the composition of our universe and, in particular, how galaxies hold together.”