DARK MATTER - WHAT IS IT?
Scientists using different methods to determine the mass of galaxies have found a discrepancy that suggests ninety percent of the universe is matter in a form that cannot be seen. (1). This strange material that dominates the Universe but which is invisible to current telescope technology is one of the great enigmas of modern science. That it exists is one of the few things on which researchers have been certain. What is it, really? How do we know that it's there? How do we ¡°see¡± it if it's ¡°dark¡±?
Some scientists think dark matter is in the form of massive objects, such as black holes, that hang out around galaxies unseen. Other scientists believe dark matter to be subatomic particles that rarely interact with ordinary matter.
In 1933, the astronomer Fritz Zwicky while studying the motions of distant galaxies in the Coma cluster estimated the total mass of a group of galaxies by measuring their brightness. When he used a different method......
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