• Question: Whats the universe made of?

    Asked by ãlæ ♀® to Angela, Claire, Ian, Robert, Sarah on 19 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by chimp 123, Beth Storry.
    • Photo: Angela Stokes

      Angela Stokes answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      From what I understand – protons, electons and neutrons with a bit of dark matter…

      Here’s a great website to help!

      http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html

    • Photo: Ian Cade

      Ian Cade answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      Basically the same stuff that your classroom/home/town is made of!

      The general idea of applying the scientific method on materials on Earth is that the results you observe here are just as applicable to the Universe as a whole…

      I don’t suppose this really *needs* to be the case, but it does turn out to be so. The measurements you can make on hydrogen plasmas on Earth give essentially identical results to observations of great balls of hydrogen plasma (stars) out in the universe.

      Curiously, as Angela mentions, there is Dark Matter and Dark Energy which we have very little knowledge of, and it is possible that these dominant components (about 95% of the stuff in the universe) are not present on Earth at all… but to me it seems that Dark Energy at least probably permeates the whole universe.

    • Photo: Sarah Harris

      Sarah Harris answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      Excellent answers from the other two – we are made of the same stuff as the universe!

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