• Question: what is dark matter?

    Asked by to Andrew, Elaine, Emma, Michael, Nancy on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Nancy Carlisle

      Nancy Carlisle answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      In the brain we have gray matter (containing mainly the neuron bodies) and white matter (containing cells that wrap around our neural connections to keep the signal strong- like how all our electrical wires are wrapped in rubber to be sure the signal doesn’t leak out).
      But DARK MATTER is a question for a different zone- may I suggest the ‘extreme energy’ zone?

    • Photo: Emma Reid

      Emma Reid answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Hi Ollie!
      Physics is not my strong point I’m afraid so I’m not very well placed to explain this one! 🙂
      Emma

    • Photo: Andrew French

      Andrew French answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Not my field too 😛

      BUT from what I understand, its matter (stuff!) that you can’t see directly. Physicists kinda had to invent it to explain some weird gravitational effects (gravity is noticeable around heavy things) that they spotted, but there didn’t seem to be any visible matter there to explain it.
      So, its ‘invisible’ stuff you can only detect because it appears to be heavy and so pulls on other things with its gravity.

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