• Question: what is the universe made out of?

    Asked by x-x-LILSKI-x-x to Alison, Hannah, Jonny, MarthaNari, Paul on 23 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by WaterMeloneee.
    • Photo: Jonny Brooks-Bartlett

      Jonny Brooks-Bartlett answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      Most scientists think the universe is made up of 3 things
      1) normal matter
      2) dark matter
      3) dark energy

      Normal matter is basically all of the stuff we can see. All of the planets and stars and water and land and all of that.

      Dark matter is thought to be stuff that exists but we can’t see. We also don’t think it interacts much which is why we don’t just bump into it randomly when we walk or when the Earth travels through space. We haven’t proved that this exists though.

      Dark energy is another thing that we’re not sure exists. We think it is energy that acts to push things apart (opposite to gravity).

      You can read more about it here: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Extreme_space/What_is_the_Universe_made_of

    • Photo: Paul Brack

      Paul Brack answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      What’s really crazy is that it’s reckoned that 68% of the Universe is Dark Energy and 27% is Dark Matter. Normal Matter , the stuff we can see and feel and measure, only makes up 5% of the Universe! We don’t know what 95% of the Universe is actually made from.

      There’s more here: http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

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