Is Dark Matter Real? Most Consultants Say Sure, however Its Nonetheless Hotly Debated

Key Takeaways on if Dark Matter Exists:

• Dark matter is actual, in keeping with most specialists. However, some scientists nonetheless debate whether it is actual or not, and we have no idea a lot about it.
• Dark matter is a mysterious and invisible substance that’s thought to make up a big a part of the universe and doesn’t mirror or take up gentle. First described again within the Thirties, we nonetheless know little or no about this mysterious matter.
• It’s extremely unlikely {that a} human would come into contact with darkish matter. However, in the event that they did, it will probably be deadly.

A mysterious and invisible substance often called darkish matter is assumed to make up a big a part of the universe and doesn’t mirror or take up gentle. First described again within the Thirties, we nonetheless know little or no about this mysterious matter, and a few nonetheless question whether it truly exists.

“Dark matter is basically an invisible component of matter,” explains Shyam Balaji, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Department of Physics, King’s College London, who studies dark matter. “All the stuff that we are made of — all the baryonic matter as we call it — the stars, planets, people, all the chemical elements that you see in the universe; all of that stuff is only a very small component of the actual matter.”

That baryonic, or “normal matter,” makes up solely round 5 % of all matter in our universe. Dark matter, on the other hand, is assumed to comprise as a lot as 27 percent of the entire cosmos, accounting for as much as 85 percent of the total mass.

Is Dark Matter Real?

Many scientists — although not all — are in settlement that darkish matter exists. However, there’s nonetheless a lot about it that’s poorly understood, and it stays an ongoing space of analysis, as researchers attempt to hint and observe it.

“Dark matter could be many things,” says Balaji. “At this point, we don’t know exactly what dark matter is made of, or what its properties are, or how strongly it interacts with normal matter.”

Read More: The Heart of the Milky Way May Host a New Form of Dark Matter

Evidence that Dark Matter Exists

Nobody, no scientist or astronomical company, has instantly noticed darkish matter up to now. Though there is no such thing as a report of direct commentary of this invisible matter, there are nonetheless telltale indicators that it does exist.

“We know that it exists by basically performing a series of experiments and observations,” says Balaji. “We have a lot of strong hints that it exists.”

One of those is gravitational lensing, which astronomers use to look at the universe. This happens when an enormous area object — comparable to a big galaxy cluster — warps area, inflicting gentle to bend round it.

“It basically acts just like a lens,” says Balaji, which means that objects past it might seem magnified to an ideal extent. That suggests that there’s extra matter in these giant objects than what we will observe as properly, Balaji explains, and it’s darkish matter that’s considered largely answerable for the lensing impact.

Researchers proceed to work in direction of discovering and detecting darkish matter. That entails the development of delicate sensors constructed deep underground, shielding them from radioactivity that could mess up their findings. One of the biggest sensors up to now is operated 4850 ft underground on the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. These sensors observe the interactions of subatomic particles with liquid xenon or argon. More too are on the best way, that would in the future discover darkish matter or shed some gentle on what it’s.

What Would Happen if We Touched Dark Matter?

It’s unlikely that any individual might be touching darkish matter anytime quickly. That’s as a result of by its very nature, it interacts weakly with regular matter. It doesn’t work together with gentle nor with electromagnetic radiation. It solely seems to work together with gravity.

“If it was strongly interacting, dark matter would just be a normal form of matter,” says Balaji. One darkish matter idea is that its particles are what are often called “weakly interacting massive particles,” or fittingly named WIMPS.

Yet, darkish matter, when it collides with its personal anti-particle, can lead to “annihilation” or it might decay into different types of particles. In a way, then, an individual might contact or work together with the outcomes of these interactions.

“It would be the products of dark matter, not dark matter itself, that you’re interacting with,” says Balaji.

Could Dark Matter Kill You?

Whether or not darkish matter might kill an individual is evidently a query of observe for some scientists. In 2019, researchers published a paper exploring whether or not the human physique might act as a dark matter detector.

They believed that if darkish matter of a sure dimension, macro dimension somewhat than the small weakly interacting WIMP, existed, it will collide with regular matter infrequently, punching a bullet-sized gap in an individual every now and again. So, the researchers posited that unexplained bullet wounds might level to the existence of huge darkish matter clumps. That this has not and doesn’t happen suggests that dark matter particles of this sort don’t exist, fortunately.

Another floated possibility is that some types of darkish matter are fashioned of microscopic black holes with the mass of an asteroid; often called primordial again holes. These tiny black holes, which in keeping with idea, are believed to have come into being shortly after the outset of the universe during the Big Bang. A collision with an individual right here on Earth would be unpleasant and undoubtedly deadly, but in addition extremely unlikely.

“The flux of them that would pass through Earth would be so incredibly tiny because they’re so heavy,” says Balaji. “So, the chances of it hitting us is so astronomically tiny that there’s just no way, practically speaking, that I could see it happening.”

“You’d have to be extremely, extremely unlucky, like extremely unlucky to the power of a huge number for it to happen,” he provides. “Even if we do make a discovery, it would be a very weakly interacting form of dark matter, and definitely not something that could hurt humans in any way.”

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