Dark matter, a speculative entity that has never been directly detected, is estimated to potentially constitute up to 85% of the matter in the universe.
Despite the lack of a precise definition for dark matter, scientists persist in their quest to unravel its mysteries. Two notable space telescopes, the upcoming Euclid telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, will play crucial roles in this pursuit.
In a captivating moment following the release of the first images captured by the telescope on July 12, 2022, astronomer Kai Noeske from the European Space Observation Centre (ESOC) in Germany made an enigmatic yet profound statement. While pointing to an image of Stephan's Quintet, a group of five galaxies, he remarked, "There is a lot out there that we do not know. And we do not know what we do not know. [But] one of those things could be dark matter."
The story of dark matter dates back to the 19th century when Lord Kelvin, a physicist, aimed to estimate the mass of the Milky Way galaxy by analyzing the movement of stars around its core. However, Kelvin encountered anomalies in the data that defied explanation, leading to the notion of "dark bodies" that elude our sight.
According to Tevong You, a theorist at CERN, these discrepancies are attributed to "invisible matter" influencing the rotation speed of galaxies, including our own. Stars have been observed moving at velocities higher than anticipated, particularly at the galaxy's periphery, which raises perplexing questions.
Ordinarily, if you whirl a stone attached to a string at a high velocity, it would break free and depart once it surpasses a certain threshold, as the string becomes incapable of restraining the stone's force. Nonetheless, astronomers have witnessed stars persisting in their orbits around the galactic center, defying expectations that they should have escaped.
To explain this phenomenon, astronomers propose the existence of invisible matter, potentially the elusive dark matter. Yet, this remains an unanswered question, along with numerous other unexplained anomalies, including the peculiar shapes of certain galaxies, including our very own Milky Way.