This structure right above this paragraph is the Milky Way. Isn’t it fascinating and so beautiful? Did you know that our solar system completes one orbit around the milky way in 230 million years? It travels at a speed of 200 kilometers per second. Isn’t that ironical because our Earth also travels around the solar system and the solar system also revolves around the Milky Way.
Have you ever asked yourself this question that what is this shining object at the center of the Milky Way? Turns out that this object is a black hole Sagittarius A. It is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy like every other galaxy has one at its center.
Now some of you smart fellows might have thought that the Sun revolves around this black hole like the Earth revolves around the Sun. You may have thought so because of the black hole’s super powerful gravity. Well smart fellow your prediction is wrong. Sorry to break it to you but it is something else.
What is this force that is causing our solar system to revolve around our galaxy? This force is not a force. This may sound bonkers to you but this mysterious thing is Dark Matter.
What I am about to say now will sound even more bonkers to you. Matter made up of atoms makes up about 4.6% of the Universe.
The rest 95% is occupied by Dark Energy and Dark Matter. Dark Energy occupies 71.4% of the Universe. Dark Matter on the other hand occupies 24% of the Universe.
(Atoms is equivalent to normal matter in this chart)
Leaving Dark Energy aside, we are going to be talking about dark matter in this article.
Dark matter is a strange and mysterious substance that holds galaxies together. If it weren’t for dark matter Milky Way would be scattered across millions of light years irregularly.
All matter is called Baryonic matter. Baryonic matter is composed of objects which are made up of electrons, protons and neutrons. Dark matter is non — Baryonic matter. This includes particles we have not yet discovered.
Dark matter is so mysterious because even light doesn’t reflect off of it although light reflects off Baryonic matter.
You can say that Dark matter is an accelerant to gravity meaning that it is another form of gravity but it is not gravity.
The honor for discovering dark matter goes to 2 astronomers Vera Rubin and Fritz Zwicky. Even though they didn’t work together, their contribution in the field is massive. Fritz Zwicky noticed it for the first time and Vera Rubin worked on it.
There is a theory that suggests that dark matter is just gravity exerted by matter but this matter is from another universe. Meaning that there is another universe colliding with ours and the matter in that universe is using its own gravity disguised as dark matter. Note — This theory requires another theory which is the Multiverse theory. This theory suggests that there are multiple universes other than ours. Each universe has its on set of physics. I have written another article on this topic so feel free to check it out.
Time for the conclusion. Dark matter is completely hypothetical, it may exist or it may not. But it sure that something is there that exerts its own gravity and makes marvelous structures in our universe.
Thanks for reading this article and I will see you in the next one.
