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Is dark matter something that scientists have only recently discovered or has it been known for a long time?

Carmela Matsell

Dark matter is something that scientists have only recently discovered. It has been known about for a long time that there is something out there in space that we can't see, but the idea of dark matter was only put forth in the 1970s.

Before that, scientists thought that all the matter in the universe was made up of things that we can see and touch, like stars and planets. But when they looked at how galaxies moved, they realized that there was something else out there affecting the way things moved.

Dark matter is called "dark" because it doesn't produce or interact with light. That means we can't see it directly, but we can see the effects it has on other objects in space.

Even though dark matter is invisible to us, we now know that it makes up a huge amount of the universe. In fact, scientists believe that dark matter makes up about 85% of all the matter in the universe!

Scientists are still learning a lot about dark matter, and there is still much we don't know. But every new discovery brings us closer to understanding this mysterious substance and how it affects the universe around us.