Forgive me if I get excited for a moment, but…today marks my first contribution to BBC Future! The feature I contributed is part of the “Will we ever?” series, in which science writers ask some big questions about what research may or may not be able to answer in the future. My article pondered whether we’ll ever be able to identify dark matter: the mysterious substance that comprises more than 80% of the mass of the Universe. (The link for my UK readers is here.)

Right now, a far easier question to answer is what dark matter isn’t. First of all, the name is misleading: dark matter isn’t “dark” in any usual sense of the word. “Invisible matter” is a better term: light shining on dark matter from any source passes right through without being absorbed or scattered, regardless of the type of light. This means dark matter can’t be made of atoms or of their constituent parts; that is, electrons, protons and neutrons.

In fact, dark matter doesn’t correspond to anything in the Standard Model, the best explanation we have for how the universe works. [Read more…]