"All throughout the Universe, we can see evidence for not only the "stuff like us" that's out there, but additional forms of energy that take us beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces. Sure, there's plenty of normal matter: things like atoms and ions, made up fundamentally of quarks, gluons, and electrons, just like we are. There are stars and planets, but also gas, dust, plasma, and even black holes made from the same raw ingredients that make us up."
"But that doesn't explain everything we know is out there contributing to our Universe. We know, from observing galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the large-scale cosmic web, that the dominant form of mass in the Universe is not found in the Standard Model, but instead is a mysterious novel substance that we presently call "dark matter." We know that the Standard Model, with all of its known laws and ingredients, cannot account for the matter-dominated Universe we have,"
The Universe contains ordinary baryonic matter — atoms, ions, stars, planets, gas, dust, plasma, and black holes — along with photons and nearly invisible neutrinos that affect cosmic evolution. Observations of galaxies, clusters, and the large-scale cosmic web indicate that the dominant form of mass is nonbaryonic dark matter outside the Standard Model. The observed matter-antimatter asymmetry requires new physics to generate baryogenesis. Accelerated cosmic expansion reveals a dominant dark energy component with particular behavior. The long-term fate of the Universe follows from these physical properties, and any differences in them would change the expected cosmic future.
Read at Big Think
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