Glossary

Dark Matter

Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that makes up about 27 percent of the universe, detected only through its gravity. Galaxies spin too fast for the visible matter they contain to hold them together, and galaxy clusters bend light more strongly than their stars and gas can explain. The Bullet Cluster, where the gravitational mass separated cleanly from the ordinary gas during a collision, is among the strongest evidence that dark matter is real and not merely a flaw in our theory of gravity.

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Cosmology · Dark Matter · Black Holes

The Black Hole Too Small to Be a Star's Ghost

Stars cannot leave a black hole lighter than the Sun. In late 2025 a gravitational-wave detector caught a signal hinting at exactly that, possibly a r...

September 4, 202612 min read

Space Exploration · ESA · Dark Universe

The Telescope Mapping the Dark Universe

Ordinary matter, everything we can see, is a rounding error in the cosmos. The rest is dark matter and dark energy. A European space telescope is buil...

September 2, 202612 min read

Cosmology · Gravitational Lensing · Dark Matter

When Gravity Bends the Sky

Mass warps space, and light must follow the curves. Galaxies are smeared into arcs, multiplied into quartets, and bent into perfect rings, a cosmic le...

July 26, 202612 min read

Cosmology · Dark Matter · Particle Physics

The Two Ghosts of the Cosmos May Be Touching

Dark matter and neutrinos are the universe's most elusive residents, each almost incapable of feeling anything. A growing body of cosmological evidenc...

June 30, 202614 min read

Cosmology · Dark Matter · Galaxy Clusters

The Collision That Left Its Own Gravity Behind

When two galaxy clusters smashed through each other, the visible matter slowed and the gravity kept going. The gap between them became the closest thi...

June 13, 202614 min read

Cosmology · Dark Matter · Black Holes

The Quiet Suspect Behind the Universe's First Giant Black Holes

Supermassive black holes appeared too early and grew too fast for standard physics to comfortably explain. A 2026 study proposes an unlikely culprit: ...

June 4, 202615 min read