What Really Is the Universe Made of? Welcome to the Dark Side: Tackle this intriguing cosmic question with a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology

摘要

There's more to the universe than meets the eye—a lot more. In recent years scientists have discovered that 95 percent of the contents of the cosmos is invisible to all of our current methods of direct detection. Yet something is definitely there, holding galaxies and galaxy clusters together, and governing the shape and fate of the universe. Scientists call these invisible components dark matter and dark energy—"dark" because these phenomena don't emit light, not because we aren't learning more and more about them. Indeed, dark matter and dark energy are the most eagerly studied subjects in astronomy and particle physics today. And for good reason—what could be more exciting than cracking the mystery of the fundamental constituents and overall composition of the universe?