By Sydney B.
Everyone has heard of the term dark matter at one point in their lives whether they knew what it meant or not. Although some people might just see it as a cool name for some stuff in space, it’s much more than that.
According to NASA, dark matter is a type of matter that makes up 27% of the universe, the rest being made of dark energy and normal matter. To actually define dark matter is a tough job because of what scientists know about it. They know more of what dark matter is not than what it is.
First of all, dark matter is not antimatter. Antimatter is a type of matter that does not exist in our universe. Scientists know this about dark matter because it does not have any of the distinct properties of dark matter, which includes gamma radiation being released when antimatter gets destroyed with normal matter. Scientists also know that dark matter isn’t anything that they can detect because of our lack of ability to detect it. One thing that they do know about dark matter, is that it’s dark.
Dark matter, however, should not be confused with dark energy. Dark energy makes up 68% of the universe and it is known as a property of space. The space that stretches outside of our galaxy and outside of all the galaxies surrounding it and even farther than this possesses dark energy. This theory was presented by Albert Einstein who said that as our universe expands and fills up space that contains the dark energy, that space will continue going out. Meaning our universe is never ending and will keep expanding.
Basically, dark matter and dark energy are mysterious and even scientists know hardly anything about it. Possibly getting closer to an explanation is exciting and worth the buzz of news.
More information- https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy