Dark Matter - What is it and is it a force of some kind?

Question

You can see it when you look out in space. So it is there

But what happens to dark matter when light is introduced, does it stop existing and disappear into the glare of the light or is it still there?

Does it expand to the edge of our Universe and stop or is it the matter of all levels of all Universe (if there are multiverse) and materials

Does dark matter carry the force of the Universal expansion from the original big bang or is it merely a mechanism of distance without light that grows upon further expansion?

It’s all very confusing

Answer 1

Good questions, and we still don't have very good answers to some of them.

Scientists can tell dark matter exists because they can measure the gravitational influence of much more matter than can be accounted for by the visible stars.

It may be that it's only "dark" because it's far away and not illuminated by the stars. perhaps close up it would turn out to be quite ordinary matter. We don't know yet.

The universe doesn't really have an "edge" in the sense you mean it. There is no space beyond the universe. It does appear, however, that dark matter pervades the known universe. While we can only speculate about the nature of other universes, it's reasonable to suspect that if they exist, dark matter will be found there as well.

All matter in the universe is still affected by the original big bang. The universe is still expanding and all matter is moving apart from all other matter (aside from the temporary localized effects of gravity).

Your question about "force" leads me to wonder if you might also be wondering about dark energy, which has a similar name but is a quite different phenomenon. First suggested by Einstein, dark energy is a little understood force that appears to be accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Nothing is conclusively known at this time.

Scientists believe that dark matter/energy make up as much as two-thirds of the total matter/energy of the universe. They are trying to come up with a plausible explanation for the observations of an expanding, accelerating universe.

We don't think dark matter/energy is anything like anti-matter, but nothing is known conclusively yet. This stuff is too new.

Maybe, if you start paying attention to "The Universe" miniseries on the "History Channel", you might catch the last episode (the third) about dark matter/energy. Then you might hear about "The Big Rip", the universe's final fate, based on the new theories about dark matter/energy.

Answer 3

No one yet knows what dark matter is, it's not a force, just matter, it's called "dark" because we can't see it in the void of space as it doesn't shine like stars and planets, or reflect the light of stars like the moon. It's existence has been proved by looking at the rotation of galaxies, if the dark matter wasn't there (orbiting the galaxies kinda like halos) then the galaxies wouldn't form or spin the way that they do.

Answer 4

There is no matter in what you are referring to. The darkness you see when you look in to space is just an absence of light, but not something tangible. It would be the same if you were in a dark room and flipped on the light. There is no dark matter that disappears it is just space that isn't lit. So you are on track in your last paragraph, it is just space without light, but not a mechanism, merely just space with the absence of light.

Answer 5

When you look into space you CAN'T see it !

It is called "Dark" because it is undetectable.

Physicists have evidence for it's existence because of bending of light between galaxies and also the speed that galaxies spin is too fast, but they do not know what it is.

One form of Dark Matter is black holes, which we do know about (We can see them draw in matter from nearby stars in binaries and they give out Hawking radiation which are x-rays ) but they can't even get close to amounting to all the dark matter in the universe.

Answer 6

Visible proof of dark matter here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060822-dark-matter.html