Dark Matter Makes Up 27% Of Universe

The story of dark matter began not by seeing something, but by noticing its powerful influence. In the 1970s, astronomer Vera Rubin observed that stars on the outer edges of galaxies were spinning far too quickly. Based on the visible matter like stars and gas, these speedy outer stars should have been flung off into deep space. The only explanation was that a massive, invisible halo of some unknown substance was providing the extra gravitational pull needed to hold the galaxies together. This "missing mass" was a revolutionary idea, suggesting that what we see is only a small fraction of what truly exists.

This invisible material isn't just "dark" in the way a planet without a star is; it's thought to be a fundamentally different kind of particle that doesn't interact with light or any other form of electromagnetic radiation. This is why we can't see it with any telescope (Deals). Its presence is inferred purely through its gravitational effects, not only in holding galaxies together but also in bending the light from distant objects (a phenomenon called gravitational lensing) and in shaping the large-scale structure of the entire universe. Scientists around the world are now running highly sensitive experiments, often deep underground, hoping to finally catch the faint signal of a dark matter particle interacting with ordinary matter and solve one of cosmology's greatest mysteries.