Answering The Question of What The Dark Matter is

We experiment and observe to find out the different characteristics that make up the universe. In order to do so, we must go over basic observation such as what it looks like, and how it interacts with other things around it, etc. These are the easy go-to questions before being able to experiment further. The planets have already been studied by astronomers and by taking a closer look, they were able to calculate their approximate speed and found the amount of time it takes for a specific planet to rotate around the sun. They were able to figure out the answer because they saw it. It was a difficult process yet it was easy because they watched it. How can you study something that is invisible or simply just... not there?

Let's start with the question, how do we know an object exists? In space, there are numerous categories that we can encounter like the Milky Way, a star, a gas cloud, and rocks. We can see them because of light. Light reflects and bounces off things but not only light is involved, matter is also added and that's what makes up the 'things' in this equation. The 'normal' matter, if I may say, have particles made of baryons which consist of protons, neutrons, and all things composed of them. You may be asking, what about oxygen? We can't see it. How did we find out its there? It was discovered because of the way it gave life on earth. Oxygen is such a huge factor in this world that it's impossible to not experiment on it. This is similar to dark matter. What exactly is dark matter? The exact answer is... we don't exactly know but studies show, about 25% of this dark matter is in our universe. It cannot be seen or sensed directly. Why is that? Why can't we see this dark entity? Simple, because dark matter is the epitome of darkness. It does not emit or absorb light in any way making it impossible for us to see. This matter doesn't do much of interaction with its own kind, let alone normal matter and later it was figured dark matter only interacts through gravity.

How does it work, then? It starts back form 1933 when a Swiss astronomer, Fritz Zwicky, was in the zone of studying clusters of galaxies called the Coma cluster. He was calculating the mass of the galaxy based on its brightness and orbital speed only to find out these clusters were moving at a much faster rate than they should be. These galaxies orbit one another and gravity holds them together. The faster galaxies spin, the more gravitational attraction they need to keep them from letting go and because more gravity meant adding more mass, Zwicky wondered where the other mass was coming from. He discovered there may be something more than what he could see, more than meets the eye. Dark matter is responsible for the movement of objects spiraling a galaxy, the invisible halo. As ridiculous, as it sounds, we know more about what dark matter isn't than what it really is. Chances are, this whole thing could be wrong but let's not ruin it until we know more about it. Right off the bat, we can conclude that dark matter is not a star. As I've mentioned above, this matter does not care for any light. It is not a cloud of normal matter because it's not baryonic matter. Antimatter can be crossed out of the list because it produces gamma rays, which dark matter does not. It's also not a form of a black hole because black holes bend light.

To conclude, dark matter is still a big mystery to us all. Even coming up with theory of it being dark could be wrong and little did we know, nothing was really there. This matter cannot be seen yet the things we can see only make a fraction of 5% in the entire universe. It really tells you how much more there is out there. Soon enough, newer things will be discovered and it could be another dark category adding to the invisible duo, dark matter and dark energy.