When it comes to research into the universe, few ideas get as much attention as dark matter.

This theoretical substance is predicted to make up about 80% of the mass in the universe, even though we (so far) cannot actually detect its existence.

Instead, scientists have to look at the way the gravity from the dark matter influences things around it to get an idea of what (and where) it is.

A new study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astrophysics has found something interesting during research into dark matter.

The researchers were attempting to learn more about dark matter by looking at hydrogen. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it is the easiest to look at to see how it is impacted by dark matter gravity.

Associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside and coauthor of the paper explained:

“These are the atoms and molecules that the light has encountered along the way. Since each type of atom has a specific way of absorbing light, leaving a sort of signature in the spectrogram, it is possible to trace their presence, especially that of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.”

He went on to say that an easier way to understand the findings was to look at dark matter as water and hydrogen as dye:

“The dye will follow where the water goes. Dark matter gravitates so it has a gravitational potential. The hydrogen gas falls into it, and you use it as a tracer of the dark matter. Where it is denser there’s more dark matter.”

When the researchers compared the information they found to what existing models of the universe show, there were some discrepancies.

“One of the current tensions is the number of galaxies on small scales and at low redshifts. The low redshift universe is the one relatively close to us.”

Currently, there are two theories that could explain the differences in models and observations. The first is that there is a never-before-seen particle (Weakly Interact Massive Particles (WIMPs)), which are believed to make up dark matter. The other option is that supermassive blackholes are somehow impacting their galaxies in ways we do not understand.

Bird commented on these options, saying:

“It’s not completely convincing yet. But if this holds up in later data sets, then it is much more likely to be a new particle or some new type of physics, rather than the black holes messing up our calculations.”

Discovering a new type of particle is always exciting.

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