Big Questions: Dark Matter
Carl Sagan’s oft-quoted statement that there are “billions and billions” of stars in the cosmos gives an idea of just how much “stuff” is in the universe. However scientists now think that in addition to the type of matter with which we are familiar, there is another kind of matter out there. This new kind of matter is called “dark matter” and there seems to be five times as much as ordinary matter. Dark matter interacts only with gravity, thus light simply zips right by it. Scientists are searching through their data, trying to prove that the dark matter idea is real. Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln tells us why we think this seemingly-crazy idea might not be so crazy after all.
