From the March 2003 Scientific American Magazine | 4 comments

The Search for Dark Matter ( Preview )

Dark matter is usually thought of as something "out there." But we will never truly understand it unless we can bring it down to earth

By David B. Cline

More from the Magazine

March
2003 Issue
Voyages Follies and Foucault's Pendulum
Innovations The Relentless Storm
Recommended The Neurologist and the Philosopher
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The universe around us is not what it appears to be. The stars make up less

than 1 percent of its mass; all the loose gas and other forms of ordinary matter, less than 5 percent. The motions of this visible material reveal that it is mere flotsam on an unseen sea of unknown material. We know little about that sea. The terms we use to describe its components, "dark matter" and "dark energy," serve mainly as expressions of our ignorance.

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