Originally Posted: June 9, 2018
Planets, stars, and physical “stuff” make up a tiny fraction of the universe. Most of the universe’s mass is instead invisible dark matter, which makes itself known not by luminance, but by its gravitational influence on the cosmos. The motions of galaxies and stars require dark matter to be explained. Yet despite decades of searching and millions of dollars spent, physicists still haven’t been able to track down a dark matter particle.
In this segment, physicists Jodi Cooley and Flip Tanedo, and Gizmodo science writer Ryan Mandelbaum talk about how experimentalists and theorists are getting creative in the hunt for dark matter—and why a few physicists say it’s time to abandon the chase and rewrite the rules of gravity, to eliminate the need for dark matter. LISTEN