Dark Matter Is Changing & Evolving

By Shlomo Maital

     What do we know about our 13.8-billion-year-old universe?  A lot – and very little.

      We know that 5 per cent of it is comprised of atomic matter – particles.  They interact with us, and we can see them, study them, smash them to pieces and examine what comes out.   25 per cent is dark matter – matter that we cannot see, that does not interact with other particles and is invisible.   70 per cent is dark energy – energy that also does not interact with existing matter and so is invisible. 

         Conclusion:  95% of the universe is a total dark mystery to us.  We know this, because if the universe comprised only the matter we observe, its rate of expansion should be slowing as cosmic bodies grow more and more distant from one another and gravity weakens. 

        Instead, we observed that the universe is expanding – at a faster and faster rate!  Only dark matter and dark energy can explain this.

        Projecting dozens and hundreds of billions of years into the future, at the current rate the universe goes dark – because objects become too far apart for us to see, and the sun has long ago gone dark, using up its helium.

        But wait!  There is new evidence, from DESI,   dark energy spectroscopic instrument, atop an observatory in Arizona’s desert.  Dark energy, it was found, is evolving, changing.  It is not constant.  So, we could well NOT have the cosmos go dark,  but rather, stop expanding, and collapse inward, implode – and cause a new Big Bang.

         I envy the physicists.   They have the world’s biggest mystery to solve —  and I sense their energy and joy at not yet knowing in the least what the universe really is and how it works. 

         And we humans?  Who think we know everything?  Not even close.