Hiding In The Universe's Shadowland
Most of the mysterious Universe is hiding in the shadows. The so-called "ordinary" atomic matter, that makes up the world we are most familiar with, is the runt of the cosmic litter of three. An unidentified exotic form of material, that scientists call dark matter, is thought to account for 25% of the Cosmos. But what is this strange form of non-atomic matter, thought to be the substance responsible for giving rise to the first galaxies to dance in the ancient Universe? Several theories have been proposed over the years, but the identity of this shadowy exotic material has not been determined. In October 2019, a team of astronomers offered a new explanation--that the dark matter is really "fuzzy". Soon after the Big Bang birth of the Universe, about 13.8 billion years ago, particles of the dark matter would have merged together to create clumps within gravitational "halos". The clumps pulled in surrounding clouds of gas into their cores, which gradually...
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