You know what matter is from grade-school science, but that only takes up a measly 4.6% of the universe (there’s no such thing as ‘empty’ space). The other 95% is mysterious and undetectable. Until now.
Researchers in Antarctica have developed a way to detect the existence of dark matter using a specialized particle-detecting balloon. This is actually a pretty big deal, lofty as it sounds. Dark matter is theorized to make up another 23% of the universe (the rest is dark energy, which is even weirder).
What makes dark matter dark? It doesn’t interact with the electromagnetic force, like atoms do. It’s sneaky like that. If you’ve read any of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials, you know dark matter as Dust.
If you’d like understand dark matter and dark energy and all that other fancy science stuff, I highly recommend Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe.
