What is Dark Matter?

Adam Hadhazy, in Discover Magazine, summarizes the top candidates to explain dark matter and the experiments in progress to find them. These include, WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, Axions, Sterile Neutrinos, and SIMPs (Strongly Interacting Massive Particles.

Distortions in the shapes of galaxies caused by gravitational lensing. While gravitational lensing is caused by anything with gravity (this means normal matter as well) the lensing effect of dark matter is a key form of evidence for its presence. Image of the galaxy cluster Abell 2218 via Wikimedia Commons.

via Brian Resnick on Vox, who provides some very interesting historical context on the discovery of dark matter.

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