there are many objects in our universe that seem to hide from astronomers
by making themselves extremely tricky to detect will this new discovery regarding dark matter
make it easier for scientists to find this elusive matter
what can it tell astronomers about one of the biggest mysteries in our universe you're watching
mata and today we're looking at the dark matter asteroids that astronomers may have discovered
the hunt for dark matter thus far ever since dark matter was first theorized in the early 1900s
physicists have been searching for any information about it that they can find
this search has led to many new technologies and new ways of probing the universe in an
attempt to detect the faintest particles within it the majority of the evidence for dark matter
comes from the study of gravitational forces within the universe dark matter makes up over 80
per cent of all the universe's matter and thus generates the majority of gravitational forces
astronomers have used this in addition to our understanding of gravity to measure the movements
of galaxies and larger galaxy clusters in order to calculate the amount of dark matter required to
generate that amount of gravitational force dark matter has only been seen through the phenomena of
gravitational lensing during which light distorts and bends around large clusters of dark matter
as of now there has been no confirmed detection of dark matter but there are multiple experiments
running currently around the world working to do just that some of these experiments use massive
tanks of fluid that are built deep underground to allow the crust of the earth to filter out
as many particles as possible with the hope that the faint nearly non-reactive particles of
dark matter will be able to make it through and collide with an atom in the tank count rate is
if you have a kilogram of detector then you're going to get in a day you might hope for one hit
from one of these things and it's and you have to get rid of all the competing signals that there's
a lot more of if a particle of dark matter does collide with a particle within the tank the finely
tuned sensors will be able to pick it up and record the data for physicists to look through
there are always attempts to find new ways to study and detect dark matter a new discovery has
energized this search with a new possible way of detecting this elusive form of matter using stars
a new theory to detect dark matter astronomers know where much of the dark matter in our universe
lies massive amounts of dark matter live in most of the regions that also contain many galaxies
they have known that particles of dark matter travel through the cosmos but new discoveries
have also shown astronomers that large clumps of dark matter around the size of an asteroid
could be traveling through space as these pieces of dark matter fly through the universe
some of them will inevitably collide with ordinary matter in the universe while dark matter and
ordinary matter are believed to not interact with each other when dark matter collides with a star
there may be enough of an interaction that our high-powered telescopes have the ability to pick
up dark matter is thought to travel faster than the speed of sound and produce a shock wave when
they crash into the surface of a star new models show that when these shock waves are produced
various types of radiation will also be emitted and may look similar to a typical solar flare
scientists are hoping to be able to detect these shock waves and radiation
using today's high-powered telescopes how will this form of detection work
on the scale of the universe these events will be extremely small so in order to pick up these
small interactions the telescopes need to be focused on the interaction the moment it occurs
in order to accomplish this astronomers will have to narrow down the places they need to look
first they will try to find the regions of space with high concentrations of dark matter
to have better chances of it interfering with a star they can also further reduce the regions
they're looking at by restricting the types of stars to focus on looking primarily at stars with
low emittance of uv radiation that may interfere with the detection of dark matter interactions and
because these interactions may also appear similar to solar flares astronomers must also tackle the
problem of filtering these out in order to make confirmation and rule out any other possibilities
luckily there are plenty of stars out in the universe that will allow astronomers to capture
images with thousands of stars at once and then use computers to help comb through the data
focusing on the individual stars that fit the criteria why haven't we found collisions with
dark matter yet while dark matter is much more prevalent in our universe than ordinary matter
scientists still believe that asteroid-sized pieces of dark matter colliding with regular
matter is a rare enough event that it is extremely unlikely to happen on earth instead the
experiments attempting to detect dark matter focus on detecting smaller particles that may be much
more common than these bigger pieces being focused on here this new form of dark matter detection is
a scaled-up version of the experiments that are already running scientists are using the
entire universe as the tank of fluid and large chunks of dark matter as the target for detection
what are top physicists saying about dark matter while many scientists know that dark matter does
not affect us much in our daily lives or even our solar system it does play a massive role
in the overall structure of the universe nearly every astronomer agrees that dark matter is the
most straightforward and simple explanation for many of the unexplained phenomena of the cosmos
it is incredible that everything we know about physics only dictates how less than
five percent of the universe behaves if science is able to understand dark matter
and eventually dark energy there are endless possibilities of what can be done from there
understanding these incredible unknown forces of our universe is key to knowing
how everything fits together in our universe and how it will continue to evolve in the future
what will the discovery of dark matter mean for the world if astronomers are able to detect dark
matter it will help confirm the current models of our universe and let scientists know that they
are on the right track but there is no telling what further study into dark matter will uncover
and what possibilities may come about because of it but more than anything being able to confirm
the existence of dark matter will help us better understand the life of our universe and how it is
structured along with helping us uncover more incredible mysteries our universe has to offer
dark matter is one of the main missing links in the field of cosmology and filling that
link in will open up countless doors for our future in this universe what are your
thoughts about dark matter and do you think science is close to understanding what it is
thanks for watching see you next time on mata