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What is dark matter?. 96% of the universe is missing In fact, all of the stuff we can detect in the universe: –All of the matter –All of the energy –Only.

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Presentation on theme: "What is dark matter?. 96% of the universe is missing In fact, all of the stuff we can detect in the universe: –All of the matter –All of the energy –Only."— Presentation transcript:

1 What is dark matter?

2 96% of the universe is missing In fact, all of the stuff we can detect in the universe: –All of the matter –All of the energy –Only seems to account for 4% of the total size of the universe

3 Scientists have been measuring the movements of millions of stars and galaxies And the way light bends on its way to us from distant galaxies billions of light years away The results say the same thing again and again There is a lot more out there than we see

4 The straight answer: we don’t know Whatever it is, it doesn’t emit or absorb light like normal matter So we’re call it dark matter We think it accounts for 23% of all the matter in the universe Pie of matter and energy [NASA]

5 It’s invisible, but its gravity gives it away by bending passing light, like a lens The cluster of galaxies in the front of this image, called Abell 1698, is bending the light from galaxies behind, making the curved streaks Abell 1698 must contain dark matter to bend the light this much Galaxy Cluster [NASA]

6 This map shows dark matter has been around since as far back as we see, around 13.4 billion years billion years It’s scattered all through the universe, like an invisible skeleton holding normal matter in the shapes we see Dark matter map [NASA]

7 Invisible astronomical objects called Massive Compact Halo Objects - MACHOS - may explain some of it MACHOS are things like neutron stars and black holes, which have huge masses but give out no light But most dark matter is probably made from something completely mysterious [CERN]

8 Dark matter might also be made of a completely undiscovered kind of subatomic particle These particles are called supersymmetric particles, or sparticles for short Some are weakly interacting massive particles: WIMPS Top of the list of suspected dark matter WIMPS are neutralinos

9 Making sparticles, like neutralinos, needs more powerful particle accelerators than ever before The LHC will be able to collide particles with enough energy to make them We won’t see them directly, but the huge detectors at the LHC may pick up hints of their existence [CERN]

10 The biggest machine on Earth To glimpse a shadow world of particles That most of the matter in the universe is made from… [CERN]

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