Dark Matter & Dark Energy

Discover the universe's building blocks – matter, dark matter, and dark energy.

Overview

Everything scientists can observe in the universe, from people to planets, is made of matter. Matter is defined as any substance that has mass and occupies space. But there’s more to the universe than the matter we can see. Dark matter and dark energy are mysterious substances that affect and shape the cosmos, and scientists are still trying to figure them out.

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Dark Matter and Energy Stories

Explore All Dark Matter and Energy Stories
Article
6 min read

NASA’s Hubble, Webb Probe Surprisingly Smooth Disk Around Vega

The top-left half of the image is a Hubble Space Telescope view of a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around the summer star Vega. The disk is represented in blue. The color trails to white as we get closer to the center of the disk. The black spot at the center blocks out the bright glow of the hot young star. The disk is perfectly circular because we are looking down on top of it. The lower-right half of the image is a view from the James Webb Space Telescope, which reveals the glow of warm dust in the disk's halo that is colored orange. The disk is brighter toward the center. There is a notable dip in surface brightness between the inner and outer disk.
Image Article
1 min read

Witch Nebula Casts Starry Spell

6 min read

Why NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever

Article3 days ago
Two spiral galaxies take the shape of a colorful beaded mask that sits above the nose. The galaxy at left, IC 2163, is smaller, taking up a little over a quarter of the view. The galaxy at right, NGC 2207, takes up half the view, with its spiral arms reaching the edges. IC 2163 has a bright orange core, with two prominent spiral arms that rotate counter clockwise and become straighter towards the ends, the left side extending almost to the edge. Its arms are a mix of pink, white, and blue, with an area that takes the shape of an eyelid appearing whitest. NGC 2207 has a very bright core. Overall, it appears to have larger, thicker spiral arms that spin counter clockwise. This galaxy also contains more and larger blue areas of star formation that poke out like holes from the pink spiral arms. In the middle, the galaxies’ arms appear to overlap. The edges show the black background of space, including extremely distant galaxies that look like orange and red smudges, and a few foreground stars.
5 min read

‘Blood-Soaked’ Eyes: NASA’s Webb, Hubble Examine Galaxy Pair

Article3 days ago
A green diffuse mass representing a molecular cloud
3 min read

Buckle Up: NASA-Funded Study Explores Turbulence in Molecular Clouds

Article4 days ago
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