CERN On The Rise - The Case For Dark Matter Has Strengthened

CERN On The Rise - The Case For Dark Matter Has Strengthened -

Hey everyone! It's your Science Maniatics correspondent Nicole, and we are back with another video full of knowledge and insight to provoke thought. Don't you just love true science and not science so falsely called? Have you ever heard of dark matter? It's a mysterious substance that makes up about 26% of the universe, but we can't see it. We only know it's there because of its effects on other things. Some scientists believe in dark matter, but others think it might not exist. They think that instead, we just don't understand the laws of physics very well. But recent evidence is starting to support the idea that dark matter is real.

One way scientists figure out if dark matter is real is by looking at how galaxies rotate. Galaxies are big collections of stars, and they spin around like a giant wheel. The Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, has between 200 and 400 billion stars, but we don't know how many there are for sure. Just like planets orbit the sun in our solar system, stars in a galaxy orbit the center of the galaxy. But while the planets are held in place by gravity and their speed, the stars in a galaxy move too fast for the amount of matter we can see. This means there must be more matter in the galaxy that we can't see, and that's where dark matter comes in.

But not everyone agrees with the idea of dark matter. Some scientists think that the laws of physics we use to explain how things move in space might be wrong. They have come up with different theories that use different equations than what we normally use. Both groups have evidence that supports their ideas and argues against the other.