Introduction
Around 90% of the universe is currently undetectable.[1] Allowing oneself to then believe that all the experiments and missions carried out for space exploration and countless images portraying the beauties of the world beyond the sky has only shown around 10% of the contents of the universe is unfathomable. So what mysteries lurk in the void of our universe? Any Physicist, or fellow inquisitive mind reading this, will immediately have two distinct phrases come to mind: Dark matter and dark energy. From being mentioned in groundbreaking scientific journals and television and movie series’ to even this essay you are reading, dark matter and its existence has made quite the impression on scientists, documentarians and aspiring students. …show more content…
[1] The underlying argument for the existence of dark matter, proposed by Zwicky himself, was that in order for such large clusters of galaxies to be held in place, there must be extra mass in these galaxies that we cannot see. The lack of this extra mass would instead cause these clusters to scatter away from each other. [2] In simpler terms, there seemed to be an undetectable force that acted as a gravitational field, keeping the galaxies spinning within the cluster. Since this matter emitted no form of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, it emitted no light. Ergo, “dark” matter. …show more content…
That 90% of the matter in our universe is yet to be detected. Turns out, that number is split up. It seems that out of that 90%, around 20% consists of dark matter and the remaining 70% is dark energy. In a nutshell, dark energy is described as an “anti-gravity” force. [9] Since we aren’t completely sure of the makeup of dark matter/dark energy, we cannot assume that the two are connected in any way. The main difference between the two is that whilst dark matter gives an explanation for the extra mass that holds galaxy clusters together, dark energy provides an explanation for why the universe’s expansion is accelerating. There is a large debate on whether the two are actually linked or not. Whilst there is no current explanation, researchers are on the hunt for any link between the two concepts. One example would be the use of a scalar field theory. This theory combines dark matter and dark energy and tries to search for a relationship between the two by modelling them as two parameters, one being mass and the other being energy. This allows researchers to observe influences, if any, that the two have on each other. [10] Nonetheless, other physicists treat them as two completely separate forces of nature with absolutely no link between the
Around 90% of the universe is currently undetectable.[1] Allowing oneself to then believe that all the experiments and missions carried out for space exploration and countless images portraying the beauties of the world beyond the sky has only shown around 10% of the contents of the universe is unfathomable. So what mysteries lurk in the void of our universe? Any Physicist, or fellow inquisitive mind reading this, will immediately have two distinct phrases come to mind: Dark matter and dark energy. From being mentioned in groundbreaking scientific journals and television and movie series’ to even this essay you are reading, dark matter and its existence has made quite the impression on scientists, documentarians and aspiring students. …show more content…
[1] The underlying argument for the existence of dark matter, proposed by Zwicky himself, was that in order for such large clusters of galaxies to be held in place, there must be extra mass in these galaxies that we cannot see. The lack of this extra mass would instead cause these clusters to scatter away from each other. [2] In simpler terms, there seemed to be an undetectable force that acted as a gravitational field, keeping the galaxies spinning within the cluster. Since this matter emitted no form of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, it emitted no light. Ergo, “dark” matter. …show more content…
That 90% of the matter in our universe is yet to be detected. Turns out, that number is split up. It seems that out of that 90%, around 20% consists of dark matter and the remaining 70% is dark energy. In a nutshell, dark energy is described as an “anti-gravity” force. [9] Since we aren’t completely sure of the makeup of dark matter/dark energy, we cannot assume that the two are connected in any way. The main difference between the two is that whilst dark matter gives an explanation for the extra mass that holds galaxy clusters together, dark energy provides an explanation for why the universe’s expansion is accelerating. There is a large debate on whether the two are actually linked or not. Whilst there is no current explanation, researchers are on the hunt for any link between the two concepts. One example would be the use of a scalar field theory. This theory combines dark matter and dark energy and tries to search for a relationship between the two by modelling them as two parameters, one being mass and the other being energy. This allows researchers to observe influences, if any, that the two have on each other. [10] Nonetheless, other physicists treat them as two completely separate forces of nature with absolutely no link between the