I heard that about 90% of the universe is made up of "dark matter", unexplainable by scientists. Is this true?

Question

I can't remember if I heard this in an astronomy class years ago or if I read it somewhere. Can anyone offer any explanations for dark matter?

Answer 1

Its actually 70% Dark Energy 25% Dark Matter and 5% Other Matter. Dark Energy is an energy that is casuing space iteself to expand; all the while moving galaxies away from each other.

Here is a good article on it: http://astroversity.blogspot.com/2007/06/explained-dark-energy.html

Answer 2

This is the latest educated guess. Let's remember that that is basically what science is. The most educated guess we can make. Because we simply don't know everything there is to know. Every time we learn new facts that don't fit into the current accepted theories on how everything works then we alter the theory to let the new facts work themselves into the equation. I am not trying to agree or disagree with the idea of Dark Matter. Maybe that IS the explanation for all I know. I'm not a scientist. But I do know that time after time throughout history, what we thought were the "facts" turned out to be only part of the picture and the picture changed when we learned something new.

Answer 3

Your figure is rough, but accurate. Most of the matterand energy in the universe turns out to be dark enrgy and dark matter. For a long time, that's jsut been a hypothesis--but recent astronomical findings have confirmed the existance of this form of matter and enrgy.

It isn't "unexplainable"--but so far we don't know very much about dark matter. Essentially it is some form of matter--it hs mass, and therefore can be detected by its gravitational effects. But--as far as is known at this point, it doesn't interact ina ny other way with normal matter and energy.

And--at this point in time, except for soe very complicated implications having to do with the part dark matter played in the "Big Bang" and may play in the way the universe expands, we don't know a whole lot about dark matter/energy.

Answer 4

The problem is that our current understanding of gravity and our calculated mass of all the stars and other matter in the universe do not match. If our understanding of gravity is correct, then we are only seeing 10% of the mass necessary for the stars and galaxies to be moving the way they are. They call the 90% of unknown mass that must be around somewhere "dark matter".

Answer 5

If science were to believe that dark matter is the prime substance of all matter ,than we would have to conclude the the Universe is made of of 100% of dark matter. The power stored in Dark matter would then be the cause of all motion.
This power storage in space would be in the form of pressure.
The formula for the motion of light would be as follows;
C^2 = P/ Rho.
Where p is the pressure of dark matter in space .
and Rho is the density of the corpuscule mass of light.

Answer 6

In astrophysics and cosmology, dark matter refers to hypothetical matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. According to present observations of structures larger than galaxy-sized as well as Big Bang cosmology, dark matter accounts for the vast majority of mass in the observable universe.

-- Read more --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

Answer 7

Actually I think the latest estimate is something like 70% dark energy, 20% dark matter and 10% everything else. By "dark" they mean that although we can see its gravitational effects - we can in no other way detect it.

Answer 8

There is a difference between 'unexplainable' and unexplained. Huge difference. God, for example, is by definition "unexplainable". Dark Matter has not been fully explained yet but that doesn't mean its 'unexplainable'.