What is dark matter and its implications in the make up of the universe?
Possibly the biggest mystery in cosmology for roughly the past 80 years is that of dark matter. Swiss astronomer Frtitz Zwicky first proposed the idea of dark matter in the 1930’s but was universally rejected by the scientific community. While observing the galaxy cluster Coma he noticed that the galaxies weren’t moving consistent with Newton’s laws of motion. They were moving with such high velocities that they should, he theorized, be ripped apart rendering the cluster a dissolving group of stars.[1] In order for the Coma cluster to be moving the way it is, it would have to hold hundreds of times more matter than observable by telescope. Either Newton’s laws were incorrect at galactic distances or there was a significantly large amount of missing, invisible matter holding us all together.[2]
It took just about 40 years and dozens more congruent publications to convince the astronomical community that dark matter exists. Since then there have been a few means of measuring its presence in the universe, “one of the most impressive is to measure the distortion of starlight as it travels through invisible matter. Like the lens of your glasses, dark matter can bend light (because of its enormous mass and hence gravitational pull).”[3] As to what it’s made of, there is a shelf full of Nobel prizes waiting to be rewarded to the individuals who can come up with a convincing, experimentally valid and reliable explanation to the make up of dark matter. The leading candidate is a completely new form of matter called “cold dark matter,” or WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles).[4] These particles are four times more common than normal matter yet we cannot see nor directly interact with them. And without them we could not physically exist.
The above image is a map of dark matter, determined by analysis of gravitational pull on light from distant galaxies.[5]
[1] Kaku, Michio. “The Big Bang.” Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos. New York: Doubleday, 2005. 73. Print.
[2] Kaku, Michio. “The Big Bang.” Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos. New York: Doubleday, 2005. 73. Print.
[3] Kaku, Michio. “The Big Bang.” Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos. New York: Doubleday, 2005. 73. Print.
[4] Kaku, Michio. “The Big Bang.” Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos. New York: Doubleday, 2005. 74. Print.
[5] “Strange Paths.” Map of Dark Matter in the Observable Universe ::. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://strangepaths.com/map-of-dark-matter-in-the-observable-universe/2007/01/08/en/>.
Blind Brilliance 