Dark Matter and Dark Energy

DARK MATTER AND DARK ENERGY

The content of the Universe is widely thought to consist of three types of substance: visible matter, dark matter and dark energy.

Visible matter (smallest proportion of the Universe - about 5% of the Universe) consists of the atoms that make up stars, planets etc and every other visible object in the Universe.

Dark matter (25%) from astronomers observations of the Universe, there must be more matter - cannot be made of normal atoms otherwise they would be able to see it. “Dark matter” is the name for this unexplained mass as it doesn’t give off light and so escapes detection.

Dark energy (70%) observations of exploding stars in the distant Universe suggested that the Universe was not just expanding but accelerating as well - can only be explained by 'dark energy’. No one knows what this is.

Dark matter dominates the Universe. It cannot be detected directly because it emits no light or radiation. Its presence, though, can be inferred from the way galaxies rotate: their stars move so fast they would fly apart if they were not being held together by the gravitational attraction of some unseen material.

A Cambridge team has recently been able to measure its "temperature" and to place limits on how it is packed in space "traced" the impression of the dark matter from movement of stars and weigh it precisely - established that galaxies contain 400 x amount