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Dark Matter: Swiss-American Astronomer By Fritz Zwicky

884 Words4 Pages

Dark matter is just what it’s name suggests; a complete mystery. More is unknown than is known about dark matter, though it is said to make up more than 27% of the universe. The existence of dark matter has only been inferred from the gravitational effect it appears to have on normal matter. Scientists are led to believe that dark matter does not interact with the electromagnetic force since zero light can be reflected, emitted or absorbed, which in turn makes it nearly impossible to detect.
Swiss-American Astronomer, Fritz Zwicky, discovered the first major evidence and proposed that dark matter was prevalent. While observing the Coma galaxy cluster, Zwicky realized that the galaxy did not have enough normal matter to maintain and keep itself together. Since he believed that the galaxy had more mass than accounted for, the additional mass from his dark matter theory would provide an explanation for how the galaxy cluster could hold itself together by gravitational attraction. While Zwicky’s calculations proved to be …show more content…

For example, Albert Einstein was the first to suggest the cosmological constant for the theory of general relativity and predicted that the universe neither expands nor contracts. Friedmann, a mathematician from Russia, discovered that the constant wasn’t secure, and projected an expanding universe model that is today referred to as the Big Bang theory. When an inquiry of nearby galaxies revealed that the universe was in fact expanding, Einstein repented his theory and viewed the constant as his "greatest mistake". Within his theories, however, Einstein also stated empty space was not nothing. Space has awe-stricken characteristics, many of which are only beginning to be understood. The

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