thethinkingatom

Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation.

Originally known as the “missing mass,” dark matter’s existence was first inferred by Swiss American astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who in 1933 discovered that the mass of all the stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies provided only about 1 percent of the mass needed to keep the galaxies from escaping the cluster’s gravitational pull.

The reality of this missing mass remained in question for decades, until the 1970s when American astronomers Vera Rubin and W. Kent Ford confirmed its existence by the observation of a similar phenomenon: the mass of the stars visible within a typical galaxy is only about 10 percent of that required to keep those stars orbiting the galaxy’s center. In astronomy, dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation.

 Dark matter is implied by gravitational effects which cannot be explained by general relativity unless more matter is present than can be observed. Dark matter constitutes over 80% of all matter in the universe, yet it remains unseen by scientists. Its existence cannot be seen or even felt but without it, the behavior of stars, planets, and galaxies would be inexplicable.

Mass content in our universe