For the last six decades, scientists at NASA, the Russian Space Agency, and other renowned space research organizations around the world have expanded the knowledge of our universe by a monstrous margin. They have launched a full fleet of telescopes and satellites that have explored various galaxies, planets, and the farthest corners of the universe. As a result, what we considered as fiction 100 years ago is now a reality due to the discovery of new elements and the study of the evolution of the universe from the big bang to the present.
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, the Spacecraft that Gave Our Universe its DOB
The cosmic microwave background is a record of the earliest version of the big bang. The dark ages are where the first stars and galaxies were formed. We must be ever grateful to the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe, which made this measurement and gave a coherent picture of the universe we see today. This probe was enabled astronomers and astrophysics to precisely date the age of the universe, which is 13.77 billion years old. Scientists were also able to understand that atoms only made 4.6% of the universe, with the remaining being dark matter and dark energy. The universe consists of regular matter, dark matter, and dark energy. Regular matter constitutes just 5%, consisting of atoms that make up stars, planets, humans, and every other visible object in the universe.
Galaxies, solar systems, and planets are held together by gravity, the universal binder; however, something doesn’t quite add up as galaxies are achieving something that defies gravity. Galaxies are rotating at such speed that the gravity generated by the observable matter doesn’t hold them together as they should have been torn apart long ago causing a cosmic catastrophe. This leads scientists to believe that something that is not observable is in play.
27% of the Universe is Dark Matter
We look up in the universe and see the effects of gravity, how it binds stars, planets, and galaxies together. Now, picture a simulation that lets you re-create the events in the history of the universe. Let’s add up all the comets, black holes, asteroids, stars, and everything we know about to account for the gravity we see. Now add dark matter, the extra gravity, Eureka, the universe becomes what we see. That’s why we know that dark matter is real; we don’t know what it is, but we know that it’s there because we cannot make the universe we see today unless the dark matter is added into the simulation as it perfectly matches with the gravity.
Particle physicists are convinced that there is an exotic particle that doesn’t interact with light, telescopes, or any other equipment but has gravity. These particles are invisible to us but are attracting matter into them and interacting with other elements in a unique and accelerated way. These exotic particles are known as dark matter, which forms the bulk of a galaxy’s mass and the foundation of the universe’s large-scale structure. The nature of dark matter is that it doesn’t emit, absorb, or reflect light, thereby making its presence invisible to the universe. However, its presence is known due to its gravitational pull on the visible matter in space.
Scientists theorize that dark matter could not be matter at all but the gravity from ordinary matter from a nearby other universe or multiverse whose gravitational influence we feel. Mind-blowing, isn’t it? However, there is no hard data of this, but there are theoretical, philosophical reasons to think that a multiverse exists. The first observation of the existence of dark matter was by the Chandra X-ray Telescope in 2007 when it observed the bullet cluster of galaxies.
68% of the Universe is Dark Energy
The Hubble Space Telescope observed very distant supernovae showed scientists that there was a time where the universe was expanding at a much slower rate than today. However, the expanding universe has not been slowing down but has accelerated by a significant margin. No scientist could rationally or theoretically explain this phenomenon, but they knew that something was causing this expansion. Scientists discovered a mysterious pressure in the vacuum of space acting opposite to the force of gravity. This pressure was coined as dark energy, a placeholder term to describe what was observed. No known force could stop or slow down the expansion of the universe.
In fact, in theory, space cannot accommodate or allow this rapid expansion of the universe as it might tear in an unimaginable way. Leading scientists and astrophysics are still baffled at this fact as they cannot explain the nature of dark energy. This energy is needed to measure the geometry of space with the total matter in the universe.
A Breakthrough that Could Re-define Our Understanding of the Universe
The universe is far from being fully understood, and there are numerous theories as to what dark matter and dark energy actually are. Scientists have been racking their brains about what these entities are. In recent times, new methods could detect these energies, thereby leading to a breakthrough in our understanding of the universe. In astrophysics, there is always a capacity to measure something, even if it is unknown to us. For instance, you could measure something falling to the ground by assessing its velocity but not know what the particle is. Likewise, we can measure the sun moving across the sky and build calendars based on that and not know that the Earth revolves around the Sun (This is what our early ancestors did).
Rebecca K Leane is an astroparticle physicist at the SLAC national accelerator laboratory at Stanford University. She believes that Jupiter is an ideal candidate to detect dark matter. It has a large surface area that enables it to capture more incoming particles than any other planet in the solar system.
Exoplanets can also be used to detect dark matter as it does not involve the use of new instruments. When the gravity of exoplanets captures dark matter, it travels to the planetary core to release its energy as heat. The more the dark matter is captured, the more it should heat up the atmosphere. This heat could be captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared telescope that is scheduled to launch in November 2021. This telescope is planned to succeed the Hubble and give rise to much larger discoveries that could re-shape the understanding of our universe.
Conclusion
With the launch of the James Webb telescope, scientists could observe various statists of galaxy evolution and compare these observations and analyze theories of the role that dark matter played in that process. In 2025, NASA is planning to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space telescope designed to unravel the secrets of dark matter and dark energy. It would enable scientists to image exoplanets, explore topics in infrared astrophysics. If this project is successful, it could pave the way to several groundbreaking scientific discoveries that could change the understanding of our existence in the universe!
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