• Question: what part of space do scientists know least about

    Asked by ollie.t to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      Hi Ollie!
      I reckon we know least about dark matter and dark energy. By studying distant exploding stars (supernovae) we can tell that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating – it’s getting bigger faster and faster – we put this down to something called ‘dark energy’. We know that dark matter (matter we can’t see) makes up ~75% of the mass of the Universe, and we can see its gravitational effects. We don’t know what either of these things are!!!

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      I think Dark Energy is the biggest unknown. We know its there, we can see its effects but we have NO clue what it is. It is stretching the universe apart, but really we don’t know what it is made of or quite how it works. People everyday try and come up with new ideas, but so far all their ideas have been wrong, and some wrong by a STAGGERING amount.

      Dark Matter we know somewhat more about, but we haven’t directly detected it. We have a few good ideas about what it may be, but nothing concrete yet. I use dark matter in my simulations, and it gives us the sort of universe we see about us, which if we don’t have it in, we don’t see.

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