Dark Matter May 2026

It provides the "glue" that keeps galaxies from flying apart.

As early as the 1930s, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky noticed that galaxies in the Coma Cluster were moving far too fast to be held together by visible matter alone. He coined the term "dunkle Materie" (dark matter) to describe the missing mass. Gravitational Lensing Dark Matter

In the 1970s, astronomer Vera Rubin observed that stars at the edges of spiral galaxies were moving just as fast as those near the center. According to Newtonian physics, they should have been moving much slower or flying off into space unless some unseen mass was holding them in place. Galaxy Clusters It provides the "glue" that keeps galaxies from flying apart

It does not interact with electromagnetic forces, meaning it is completely transparent. Gravitational Lensing In the 1970s, astronomer Vera Rubin

Dark matter makes up roughly , dwarfing the "ordinary" matter—stars, planets, and people—which accounts for less than 5%.

Scientists discovered dark matter not by seeing it, but by noticing that the universe's "math" didn't add up without it. Galaxy Rotation Curves

The exact identity of dark matter remains unknown, though several leading theories exist: The quest for dark matter with Matt Bothwell