• Question: what is dark matter

    Asked by 12swanb to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 20 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by holmenat.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I think you’re in the wrong forum! Sorry!

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      That’s one of the hardest questions in science right now! I don’t think any of us scientists in this group are working on that topic, but I can give you a really nice video to watch if you want to find out more about it: http://www.phdcomics.com/tv/#006

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Yeah, you probably know this better than me – I haven’t done physics since GCSE! And that was 12 years ago – they’ve probably changed it…

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Dark matter is something which is believed to make up a large part of the universe, but is hard to measure directly because there is nothing about it to measure! However, physicists know it is there because they can see its effects on things that they CAN measure- it is known to possess a large gravitational force, and is made of weakly interacting massive particles, or ‘WIMPs’ for short.

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