Roughly 80 percent of the mass of the universe appears to be dark matter: an invisible material that seems to interact with ordinary matter only through gravity, without emitting light or energy. Scientists cannot detect dark matter directly and don't yet know what it's made of, but they track its influence based on the motions of stars and galaxies. The presence of dark matter is necessary to explain the universe's current structure.
Related Topics: The Big Bang Theory, Black Holes, The Theory of Relativity in Space, Gravitational Waves
Latest about dark matter
3 puzzles of our universe could be solved with this new dark matter theory
A new recipe of dark matter that interacts with itself could be the solution to three separate and vastly different cosmic puzzles.
Scientists created one of the largest simulations of our universe ever — about the size of 500,000 HD movies
The FLAMINGO project helps scientists explore how galaxies, dark matter and cosmic structures evolved over billions of years.
Why were galaxies so active in the early universe? We may be getting close to the answer
Early galaxies were star-forming machines, gobbling up gas and spitting out stars with a furious intensity. A new model helps explain why things were so different back then.
Did decaying dark matter help create the universe's first supermassive black holes?
"With the James Webb Space Telescope now revealing more supermassive black holes in the early universe, this mechanism may help bridge the gap between theory and observation."
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory, is finally complete
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is set to launch this coming September, has the potential to show us pockets of the cosmos we've yet to touch.
'Dark subhaloes' may explain why galaxies seem to form pre-determined shapes
Our universe is full of mysteries, but few are as perplexing as the dark, tiny galaxies that hover around larger ones like the Milky Way.
Dozens of hidden star streams found in the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy
Astronomers discovered dozens of stellar streams in the Milky Way using Gaia data, offering new clues about galaxy formation and dark matter.
How fast is the universe expanding? Astronomers may be one step closer to resolving 'Hubble trouble'
The local universe may be expanding more slowly than previously thought, a discovery that could relieve a pesky discrepancy known as the Hubble tension.
