Dark matter is the name given to the mysterious stuff that makes up some 27% of the universe. This flowchart, composed by former Physics World feature editor Louise Mayor in 2014, guides you through the many options for what it could be. (Click to enlarge or open in a new tab and zoom in for the full detail.)
It’s just for fun, but our flowchart will help guide you through the maze of possible options for this stuff, be it familiar stuff like massive compact halo objects (MaCHOs) or non-baryonic matter like neutrinos, WIMPS, gravitions, sterile neutrinos or maybe even axions or something to do with supersymmetry. Or perhaps you’d just rather modify our theories of gravity instead.
The flowchart was originally published in the July 2014 special issue of Physics World on the dark universe, one of the features in which was “Theories of dark side” by physicist Jeff Forshaw. Enjoy the flowchart!
