• Question: what makes up the universe?

    Asked by anon-288229 on 12 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Camilla Negri

      Camilla Negri answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      I would say everything is made up of atoms (tiny particles), but I am not a physicist! Why don’t you have a look at what the European Space Agency has to say about this: http://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Extreme_space/What_is_the_Universe_made_of#:~:text=The%20Universe%20is%20thought%20to,visible%20object%20in%20the%20Universe.

    • Photo: Mirella Vivoli-Vega

      Mirella Vivoli-Vega answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      I am not a physicist however I am a loving space person. As far we know universe is made of dark matter, dark energy, and ordinary matter. The dark matter and energy remain puzzling, the ordinary one is made of atoms that make stars, planets, moons, galaxies, trees, animals and human beings.

    • Photo: Mark Turner

      Mark Turner answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      We only know what makes up about 4% of the universe – that’s the stuff we know on Earth and it’s made of the elements in the Periodic Table – “ordinary matter”. Until recently we thought this was all there was, but it’s now clear that something exists that doesn’t react to “light” but causes gravitational attraction – we know because of how stars in galaxies move: “dark matter” (poor name – “invisible matter”?) Then again there’s someting that is causing expansion – “dark energy”. Big big mysteries. The universe is very strange.

    • Photo: Christopher Woods

      Christopher Woods answered on 12 Mar 2021:

      The simple answer is that we don’t know. It is that not knowing that fuels our curiosity and pushes us to find out. I find it amazing that we don’t know what 96% of the universe is made of. There’s a lot of questions. The joy of science is having the time and working as part of a team to find some answers.

Comments