Roughly 80 percent of the mass of the universe appears to be dark matter: an invisible material that seems to interact with ordinary matter only through gravity, without emitting light or energy. Scientists cannot detect dark matter directly and don't yet know what it's made of, but they track its influence based on the motions of stars and galaxies. The presence of dark matter is necessary to explain the universe's current structure.
Related Topics: The Big Bang Theory, Black Holes, The Theory of Relativity in Space, Gravitational Waves
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'Superhighways' connecting the cosmic web could unlock secrets about dark matter
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Dark matter might make space-time ring like a bell around black holes — and we might be able to 'hear' it
To explain why dark matter particles haven't come up in any direct detection experiments, physicists have wondered if it may be a kind of particle known as an axion.
