The Dark Side: Matters of Darkest Dark

Q: What does Dark Matter look like?

Brown Dwarf

A: Dear MACHO:

Well, I am not a scientist. The closest I come is a social scientist and even then...a poor one. To that end...the 100HB's colleagues were supposed to answer this insidious question.

Your question is only the surface of deeper questions, such as, “What is Dark Matter?”, "How does one find it?", and "What is the purpose of Dark Matter?". I am glad you are so inquisitive- you must have a striking intellect.

The name ‘dark matter’ is given to the amount of mass whose existence is deduced from the analysis of galaxy rotation curves but which until now, has escaped detections. NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Prove (WMAP) reveals that dark matter comprises 23% of the universe.


Dark Matters properties are as follows (and as argued):

• Does not emit light
• Does not absorb light
• Can be detected indirectly by its gravity
• Is invisible

So in answer to your questions as to what does it look like- invisible. Which only makes sense when you discover that while attempting to create the new invisibility cloak, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University managed to create the darkest material ever made by man (0.045% reflection which beats out the current 1.4%). That is “Dark Matter”.
Scientifically, if one were to accept the Big Bang Theory, one would have to agree that something (or someone) organized matter to form the galaxies. Our galaxy is the Milky Way. The Milky Way contains about 100 billion stars. On still larger scales, individual galaxies are concentrated into groups, or what astronomers call clusters of galaxies. These all had to be organized. But by what? Some would argue God. Some would argue dark matter. The force, or glue, that holds the cluster together is gravity -- the mutual attraction of everything in the Universe for everything else. The space between galaxies in clusters is filled with a hot gas. In fact, the gas is so hot (tens of millions of degrees!) that it shines in X-rays instead of visible light. By studying the distribution and temperature of the hot gas we can measure how much it is being squeezed by the force of gravity from all the material in the cluster. This allows scientists to determine how much total material (matter) there is in that part of space.

Remarkably, it turns out there is five times more material in clusters of galaxies than we would expect from the galaxies and hot gas we can see. Most of the stuff in clusters of galaxies is invisible and, since these are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity, scientists then conclude that most of the matter in the entire Universe is invisible. This invisible stuff is called 'dark matter'. Current research is using the identification of dark matter in hopes to locate Black Holes. Dr. Prisin Chen of the Stanford Linear Accelerator center says:

"If a sufficient amount of small black holes can be produced in the early Universe, then the resultant remnants, which are stable and interact only through gravity, can be an interesting candidate for dark matter."

According to Nasa, there is currently much ongoing research by scientists attempting to discover exactly what this dark matter is, how much there is, and what effect it may have on the future of the Universe as a whole. In short…no one knows but God.

PS - By the other colleague:
The 100 Hour Board encourages self-discovery and self-learning (ie finding out yourself, and not just discovering, yes indeed you have an arm on the left side). For this reason 1/2 of the board has directed the other 1/2 to answer their own D$#@ quesiton.
And to good results. Excellent presentation of the facts and understanding in science. Some quick notes.
All of this must be framed in the light (ha ha) that all science is theory, and usually (esp in physics) a way to mathematically conform reality (observation) to a model. What fits. For example the entanglement effect (think quantum teleporation) was first predicted mathmatically than proven. String theory is just a series of math proofs. So dark matter and energy are essentially solutions to a very VERY long math problem.
We also "see" dark matter by the way we see objects. That is the dark matter deflects actual positions of matter into an Einstein ring.
All of this (and a really cool experiment you can try at home to "see" what Einstein rings look like - minute 6:45 on) is best explained by a fantastic video from TED by Patricia Burchat. I encourage you to view. Here is also the link.


We encourage you to check out TED more.