• Question: What is the universe made of? I know there is matter and anti-matter, but that confuses me!

    Asked by docryan to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      The universe can be dissected into 3 parts, matter, dark matter and dark energy. Now matter accounts for about 1 to 10 % of the universe. Matter is what makes up all of us and everything you can see.

      Dark matter is something we cannot see and is believed to account for certain descripencies that we see in measurements of galaxies. Where certain radiation can be detected and gravitational effects can be seen to act upon an object or galaxy. It is believed that dark matter takes a large % of the universe.

      Dark energy is the energy that is suspected to be throughout the universe and is what is causing the universe to expand out at an accelerated rate.

    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hey there,

      I can understand the confusion 🙂 especially considering when it comes to the definition of matter and anti-matter. To be fair – this is still an open question (have a look there http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html). Quoting this NASA website, “more than 95% of the energy density in the universe is in a form that has never been directly detected in the laboratory”…so your confusion is quite shared 🙂
      I hope that this link will help you get partially your head around that topic 😉

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Wow – docryan your questions are really difficult – I’m guessing you’re a bit of science whizz yourself! Anyway, i’m sure some of my fellow scientists in Aluminuim have got some goood answers so I’ll leave this one to them! Sorry!!

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I’m not sure. I did a quick google search and got: The Universe is composed of 70% dark energy, 25% dark matter, 4% molecular hydrogen, almost 1% of stars and the rest is heavier elements.

      I’m not even sure what dark energy is, let alone dark matter, but it does sound quite evil! lol
      Sorry to not be of more help 🙂

    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Well docryan, that confuses me to.

      I know the universe is made mostly of vaccum and a little bit of matter. According to my astronomer friend, there’s also anti-matter but apparently much less than matter – which is puzzling and not very well understood (apparently… :-P)

      My astronomer friend recommended this page if you want to know more:

      http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html

      Hope that helps uncomplicate things for you – it helped me! 😉

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