blunt-science:Often referred to as the jellybean universe, this jar depicts the overwhelming amount
blunt-science:Often referred to as the jellybean universe, this jar depicts the overwhelming amount of dark matter versus ordinary matter in the universe.The universe is estimated to consist of up to 95.1% dark matter and dark energy, with the following 4.9% coming from ordinary matter. Dark matter is a hypothetical matter that is theorised from its effect on visible matter. Initial evidence for dark matter arose when it was calculated that galaxies would fly apart, or had not have even formed at all, if there were not large amounts of unseen matter influencing the ordinary matter.⠀⠀Dark matter does not appear to interact with electromagnetism – not reflecting, absorbing, or emitting light – and has only been theorised. Although it cannot be seen, astrophysicists the world over are trying to further understand this mystery of astronomy. It is thought that ordinary matter can interact with dark matter only via gravity, and could be an undiscovered elementary particle, such as a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMPs). ⠀⠀Although dark matter is generally accepted, there are those within the scientific community that argue that modifications to existing laws of general relativity and Newtonian mechanics could account for the odd observations that dark matter has been attributed to. -- source link