Text II
The Possible Parallel Universe of Dark Energy
By Corey S. Powell
Are you a baryonic matter chauvinist? Probably,
yes, but if not so sure, here is the definition of baryonic
matter. Baryonic matter is that with which we are all
familiar and that interacts with visible light: Protons,
neutrons and electrons; atoms and molecules; your
body, your car, stars, galaxies. Almost all of us are
chauvinist in relation to baryonic matter. We tend to
think of ourselves and the world immediately around
us as something special. Then, by extension we
regard our kind of matter as the most important kind
of matter in the universe. We act as if the only kinds of
matter that mattered were the ones we can see.
Sorry to disappoint you, but science tells a starkly
different story. Last spring, the European Space
Agency’s Planck Spacecraft completed an ultraprecise
15-month census of the composition of the universe.
Baryonic matter, also named light matter, makes up
only 4.9% of the total composition of the universe.
Planck Spacecraft also found evidence that
another fundamentally invisible, cool and mysterious
type of matter, named dark matter, vastly outweighs
baryonic matter, accounting for 26.8% of the universe.
Dark matter is undetectable by its emitted radiation,
but its presence can be inferred from gravitational
effects on visible matter.
The remaining 68.3 % is dark energy, an even
more baffling component that consists of formless
forces. According to Einstein, dark energy is an
intrinsic property of space. As more space comes
into existence, more of this energy-of-space appears.
A hypothesis is that, as a result, this form of energy
might cause the Universe to expand faster and faster.
While this theory is still not well understood or proven,
it is certain that more than two-thirds of the universe
has no substance at all!
While we usually focus on matter made of visible
atoms, researchers learn more about dark matter’s
and dark energy’s complexities. In view of the
discomfiting Planck result, we must let go of all our
feelings of supremacy. After all, it seems possible that
our galaxy lives on top of shadow galaxies without us
even knowing it.
Available at: . Retrieved on: July 2013. Adapted.
According to Text II, the dark energy
