Materia Oscura y Energía Oscura C2

The discovery that the vast majority of the universe consists of invisible components represents one of the most profound revelations in modern cosmology. Ordinary matter, composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons, accounts for only about five percent of the total mass-energy content of the universe. The remaining 95 percent is divided between dark matter, which constitutes approximately 27 percent, and dark energy, which makes up about 68 percent. These mysterious components have never been directly observed, yet their existence is inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter and the large-scale structure of the universe. Understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy has become one of the central challenges in contemporary physics, driving both theoretical innovation and experimental efforts.

Dark matter was first postulated in the 1930s when astronomer Fritz Zwicky studied the Coma Cluster of galaxies. He observed that the galaxies in the cluster were moving too rapidly to remain bound together by the gravitational attraction of visible matter alone. Zwicky concluded that some form of invisible matter must be providing additional gravitational binding. Similar evidence emerged decades later when Vera Rubin measured the rotation curves of spiral galaxies. She found that stars at the outer edges of galaxies were orbiting at roughly the same speed as stars near the center, contrary to predictions based on visible matter distribution. This observation implied the presence of a massive dark matter halo extending far beyond the visible galaxy, providing the additional gravitational force needed to maintain the observed rotation speeds.

The evidence for dark matter extends far beyond galaxy rotation curves. Gravitational lensing, where light from distant objects is bent by the gravitational field of intervening mass, reveals far more mass than can be accounted for by visible matter. The cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang, contains subtle patterns that indicate the presence of dark matter in the early universe. The formation of large-scale cosmic structures, such as galaxies and galaxy clusters, also requires dark matter to provide the gravitational scaffolding for ordinary matter to collapse and form structures. The convergence of multiple independent lines of evidence makes a compelling case for the existence of dark matter, despite the fact that it has never been directly detected.

Numerous theoretical candidates have been proposed for dark matter particles. The most widely studied class of candidates are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, or WIMPs. These hypothetical particles would interact only through the weak nuclear force and gravity, making them extremely difficult to detect. WIMPs would have been produced in the early universe and could have the right properties to constitute the observed dark matter density. Extensive experimental searches for WIMPs have been conducted using underground detectors designed to capture rare interactions between dark matter particles and atomic nuclei. Despite decades of searching, these experiments have not yet detected WIMPs, leading to increasing interest in alternative dark matter candidates.

Other proposed dark matter candidates include axions, extremely light particles originally proposed to solve a problem in quantum chromodynamics. Axions would have

Dark Matter and Dark Energy

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