Dark Matter, By Fritz Zwicky - 2034 Words

Dark Matter was first proposed by Fritz Zwicky in the 1930’s when he observed the motions of galaxies and he noticed that the amount of visible objects could not account for the observations he made. There had to be some â€Å"invisible† mass holding these galaxies together. It is known that 25% of our universe is made up dark matter versus 4% of the visible matter we know and interact with every day. The leading candidates for dark matter are MACHOs and WIMPS. Gravitational lensing is one of the ways we can infer the presence dark matter, since we cannot see it directly. With the discovery of dark matter, the standard model of physics no longer answers all the questions. For that, we need another model, called supersymmetry. Dark matter†¦show more content†¦This didn’t make any sense as we would expect orbits to be slower the further from the center they are located (The University of Texas McDonald Observatory). With the discovery of dark matter, and discovering the â€Å"missing mass,† the thought was that the universe would end in a â€Å"Big Crunch.† However, that is not the case because something else is causing the expansion of the universe at an accelerating rate, this is known as Dark Energy. We’ve also been able to measure the cosmic microwave background radiation from the after effects of the big bang. The microwave radiation tells us the composition of the universe, including that there must have been dark matter (Powell, 2013). The two leading culprits of dark matter are MACHOs, or MAssive Compact Halo Objects, and WIMPS, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (Newman, 2009). MACHOs are baryonic matter, meaning they consist of protons and neutrons, which include black holes, brown dwarfs, and neutron stars (Newman, 2009). These objects produce a phenomena known as gravitational lensing (Goldsmith). Gravitational lensing happens when objects, like a black hole, brown dwarfs, or neutron star, pass in front of a star or a galaxy and cause light itself to bend. That is, from Earth we observe a black hole and directly behind that is a galaxy, the light emitted from the galaxy gets bent around the black hole. There is almost a halo-like appearance around the black hole due to the distortion ofShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Dark Matter On A Galaxy s Matter2021 Words   |  9 PagesDark matter is the idea of unseen matter in the universe that affects the gravitation and mass of varying objects, such as stars and galaxies. Dark matter is hard to see and find because unlike matter, it does not reflect or emit light. It also does not affect the electromagnetic fields in the universe (CERN 1). Dark matter can either be â€Å"hot† or â €Å"cold.† â€Å"Cold† dark matter means when the big bang occurred it was not moving fast enough to affect the formation of galaxies. 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The scientific communityRead MoreDark Matter - Original Draft1421 Words   |  6 PagesDark Matter – First Draft In the scientific community, many ask what forces drive the shaping of galaxies and the universe. This question is difficult to answer because physicists realized there was missing mass when they were looking at galaxies in the universe. Galaxies simply could not exist without accounting for additional mass. However, scientist Fritz Zwicky theorized a solution for this problem in the 1930’s (Basak). He used the abstract idea that this missing mass could be accounted for