Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

May 2, 2014

Exotic Particles May Hold Clues to Mysterious Dark Matter

Dark matter makes up about 80 percent of the universe's mass, but scientists still don't know what the strange stuff is. Scientists have proposed a number of particles as candidate components of mysterious dark matter, which is so named because it apparently neither emits nor absorbs light. The hunt is...

May 22, 2014

Report: New Physics Should Hunt Dark Matter & Energy

The U.S. particle physics community should build atom smashers and giant telescopes to further discoveries related to the Higgs boson particle, learn more about the mass of ghostly, chargeless particles known as neutrinos, search for dark matter and dark energy and hunt for new particles, according to a new report....

Sep 19, 2014

Hints of Mysterious Dark Matter Revealed by Cosmic Rays

A particle detector floating 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth has analyzed 41 billion cosmic-ray particles, and the data have revealed new insights into the mysterious and invisible dark matter that physicists believe makes up 27 percent of the universe. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) detector aboard the International Space...

Nov 13, 2014

Not Particles, But Chunks: Dark Matter Gets Stranger

Dark matter may not be made of tiny particles as most scientists believe, but instead may consist of large chunks of strange matter anywhere from the size of an apple to an asteroid, researchers said. Currently one of the greatest mysteries in science, the invisible substance called dark matter is...

Dec 1, 2014

Invisible Dark Matter May Show Up in GPS Signals

GPS satellites are crucial for navigation, but now researchers think this technology could be used for an unexpected purpose: finding traces of enigmatic dark matter that is thought to lurk throughout the universe. Physicists estimate there is nearly six times as much dark matter in the universe as there is...

Apr 14, 2015

Dark Matter Illuminated in New High-Resolution Maps

BALTIMORE — In the universe, dark and light tend to cluster together, according to new maps that chart the location of dark matter over a large portion of the sky. The new maps show that in some places there are large amounts of dark matter, while in others it is...

Nov 5, 2015

Mysterious Dark Matter May Not Always Have Been Dark

Dark matter particles may have interacted extensively with normal matter long ago, when the universe was very hot, a new study suggests. The nature of dark matter is currently one of the greatest mysteries in science. The invisible substance — which is detectable via its gravitational influence on normal matter...

Nov 25, 2015

Dark Matter 'Hairs' May Surround Earth

Earth may sport a thick coat of superlong dark matter hairs, a new study suggests. Astronomers think dark matter — a mysterious, invisible substance that neither emits nor absorbs light, and is about six times more common than normal matter — forms fine-grained but incredibly long streams throughout the universe....

Mar 17, 2016

Dark Matter May Be Made Up of Superheavy Particles

Dark matter could be made of particles that each weigh almost as much as a human cell and are nearly dense enough to become miniature black holes, new research suggests. While dark matter is thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe, scientists don't know what this...

Aug 26, 2016

This Weird Galaxy Is Actually 99.99 Percent Dark Matter

Astronomers have discovered a galaxy as big as the Milky Way that consists almost entirely of dark matter, a mysterious and invisible substance that scientists have been trying to figure out for decades. Only one-hundredth of one percent of the galaxy is ordinary, visible matter like stars and planets. The...

Sep 9, 2016

Dark Matter Just Got Murkier

Don Lincoln is a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab, America's largest Large Hadron Collider research institution. He also writes about science for the public, including his recent The Large Hadron Collider: The Extraordinary Story of the Higgs Boson and Other Things That Will Blow Your Mind...

Dec 30, 2016

Universe May Have Lost 'Unstable' Dark Matter

The early universe may have contained more dark matter than there is today, new research suggests. The findings could help scientists better understand what the universe was like just after the Big Bang, researchers said. Most of the matter in the universe seems to be invisible and largely intangible; it...

Apr 18, 2017

Captured: First 'Image' of the Dark Matter That Holds Universe Together

For decades, scientists have tracked hints of a thread-like structure that ties together galaxies across the universe. Theories, computer models, and indirect observations have indicated that there is a cosmic web of dark matter that connects galaxies and constitutes the large-scale structure of the cosmos. But while the filaments that...

May 3, 2017

'Excess' Gamma-Rays Likely Not Sign of Dark Matter After All

A promising lead about the nature of elusive dark matter may have just dried up. A mysterious abundance of gamma-rays — the highest-energy light in the universe — at the Milky Way's center is likely being produced by fast-spinning stellar corpses called pulsars, rather than bits of dark matter slamming...

Jul 16, 2017

Is Dark Matter Real?

Don Lincoln is a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab, America's largest Large Hadron Collider research institution. He also writes about science for the public, including his recent The Large Hadron Collider: The Extraordinary Story of the Higgs Boson and Other Things That Will Blow Your Mind...