dark matter

Topic description and stories

The big question - Cambridge University team joins ALPHA hunt for dark matter

07 Feb 2024

A team of Cambridge scientists are working to help identify the mysterious and invisible material believed to make up 85 per cent of all the matter...

Mission to map the dark Universe sets off on space journey

01 Jul 2023

A European mission to explore how gravity, dark energy and dark matter shaped the evolution of the Universe soared into space from Cape Canaveral on...

A new map of the dark matter made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. The orange regions show where there is more mass; purple where there is less. The typical features are hundreds of millions of light years across. The grey/white shows where contaminating light from dust in our Milky Way galaxy, measured by the Planck satellite, obscures a deeper view.

New findings that map the universe’s cosmic growth support Einstein’s theory of gravity

11 Apr 2023

A new image reveals the most detailed map of dark matter distributed across a quarter of the entire sky, reaching deep into the cosmos.

Have we detected dark energy? Cambridge scientists say it’s a possibility

15 Sep 2021

Dark energy, the mysterious force that causes the universe to accelerate, may have been responsible for unexpected results from the XENON1T...

Perseus: A galaxy cluster located about 240 million light years from Earth

New data tests 'theory of everything'

19 Mar 2020

One of the biggest ideas in physics is the possibility that all known forces, particles, and interactions can be connected in one framework. String...

Women in STEM: Dr Francesca Chadha-Day

06 Feb 2020

Dr Francesca Chadha-Day is a theoretical physicist, a research fellow at Peterhouse, and a science comedian. Here, she tells us about her lifelong...

Artist's impression of dark matter clumps around a Milky Way-like galaxy

Massive holes ‘punched’ through a trail of stars likely caused by dark matter

07 Sep 2016

The discovery of two massive holes punched through a stream of stars could help answer questions about the nature of dark matter, the mysterious...

Opinion: Large Hadron Collider sees tantalising hints of a new particle that could revolutionise physics

17 Dec 2015

Harry Cliff (Cavendish Laboratory) discusses the potential discovery of a new particle at the Large Hadron Collider and its implications for particle...

The dwarf galaxies are located near the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, at the centre of the image.

Welcome to the neighbourhood: new dwarf galaxies discovered in orbit around the Milky Way

10 Mar 2015

Astronomers have discovered a ‘treasure trove’ of rare dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting our own Milky Way. The discoveries could hold the key to...

CGI graphic showing how a cluster of low frequency antennas might look when deployed in the Australian desert, Credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions/ICRAR/ASTRON

Work begins on world’s most powerful radio telescope

04 Nov 2013

This week, work begins on the next phase of development for the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, with the University of Cambridge leading...

Artist's impression of a dwarf galaxy seen from the surface of a hypothetical exoplanet.

Dark matter is smoother than we thought

25 Oct 2011

If a galaxy is seen as a peach, the standard cosmological model portrays dark matter as the ‘pit at its centre’. Now a study of two dwarf galaxies by...