• Question: is the 'BLACK MATTER' a real thing, or is it a combined amount of stars to fool our eyes?

    Asked by delilahbeatrice to Laura, Nicola, Norman, Sandra, Thanasis on 19 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Thanasis Georgiou

      Thanasis Georgiou answered on 19 Mar 2013:


      Dark matter is very much real. We can detect its influence on nearby stars but cannot directly see or probe its nature.

      More than 80% of the total matter in the universe is dark matter! The rest is made out of “dark energy” near 15%. Ordinary mass composed of stars like our sun and planets like the earth only takes up 4% of the matter!

      There are many experiments that are ongoing trying to detect what exactly is dark matter and dark energy. So far, we know very little about them.

    • Photo: Nicola Wardrop

      Nicola Wardrop answered on 19 Mar 2013:


      Hmm, I didn’t know anything about black matter, so reading Thanasis’ answer was a good learning point for me!

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