{"id":785402,"date":"2024-07-09T02:19:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T07:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=785402"},"modified":"2024-07-09T02:19:01","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T07:19:01","slug":"what-is-dark-matter-whats-it-made-out-of-how-do-we-know-it-exists-short-wave-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=785402","title":{"rendered":"What is dark matter? What’s it made out of? How do we know it exists? : Short Wave : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n A simulation of the formation of dark matter structures from the early universe until today.
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Ralf Kaehler\/NASA\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, American Museum of Natural History<\/p>\n

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Ralf Kaehler\/NASA\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, American Museum of Natural History<\/p>\n

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A simulation of the formation of dark matter structures from the early universe until today.<\/p>\n

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Ralf Kaehler\/NASA\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, American Museum of Natural History<\/p>\n

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Dark matter is invisible. It’s all around us. And we have no idea what it is.<\/p>\n

The universe is so much bigger than what people can see. Visible matter \u2014 which makes up the things you can see like the ground, the Sun, the screen you’re reading this on \u2014 makes up only about 4 or 5 percent of the known universe. Scientists like Priyamvada Natarajan, an astrophysicist at Yale University, say that dark matter is the bulk of the matter that exists. But because it doesn’t interact with light, we have very few ways to directly examine it.<\/p>\n