DARK MATTER

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dark matter mean? 

• DARK MATTER (noun)
  The noun DARK MATTER has 1 sense:

1. (cosmology) a hypothetical form of matter that is believed to make up 90 percent of the universe; it is invisible (does not absorb or emit light) and does not collide with atomic particles but exerts gravitational force

  Familiarity information: DARK MATTER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DARK MATTER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(cosmology) a hypothetical form of matter that is believed to make up 90 percent of the universe; it is invisible (does not absorb or emit light) and does not collide with atomic particles but exerts gravitational force

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("dark matter" is a kind of...):

matter (that which has mass and occupies space)

Meronyms (parts of "dark matter"):

weakly interacting massive particle; WIMP (a hypothetical subatomic particle of large mass that interacts weakly with ordinary matter through gravitation; postulated as a constituent of the dark matter of the universe)

Domain category:

cosmogeny; cosmogony; cosmology (the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and evolution and structure of the universe)

 Context examples 

Putting both into their calculations led to the total mass of the galaxy and a calculation for the total mass of just the dark matter—830 billion times that of the sun.

(Researchers Estimate Mass of Milky Way to Be 3.9 Tredecillion Pounds, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

This surprising result was obtained using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and suggests that dark matter was less influential in the early Universe than it is today.

(Dark Matter Less Influential in Galaxies in Early Universe, ESO)

The dark matter concentrations detected by Hubble are 1/10,000th to 1/100,000th times the mass of the Milky Way's dark matter halo.

(Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Find Dark Matter in Small Clumps, NASA)

Every galaxy sits in the center of a dark matter halo.

(NASA's WISE findings poke hole in black hole 'Doughnut' theory, NASA)

Astronomers theorize that this frenzied star birth was sparked by a torrent of gas flowing into the galaxy's core while it formed deep inside a gravitational well of dark matter, invisible cosmic material that acts as the scaffolding of the universe for galaxy construction.

(Telescopes Uncover Early Construction of Giant Galaxy, NASA)

The researchers still had to take into account dark matter, which prior research has suggested makes up approximately 93 percent of the galaxy's total mass.

(Researchers Estimate Mass of Milky Way to Be 3.9 Tredecillion Pounds, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and a new observing technique, astronomers have found that dark matter forms much smaller clumps than previously known.

(Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Find Dark Matter in Small Clumps, NASA)

But the more elusive dark matter does not emit, absorb or reflect light and can only be observed via its gravitational effects.

(Dark Matter Less Influential in Galaxies in Early Universe, ESO)

Dark matter is an invisible substance that dominates matter in the universe, outweighing the regular matter that makes up people, planets and stars.

(NASA's WISE findings poke hole in black hole 'Doughnut' theory, NASA)

The Hubble research team, however, used a technique in which they did not need to look for the gravitational influence of stars as tracers of dark matter.

(Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Find Dark Matter in Small Clumps, NASA)